Self-directed professional development activities: An autoethnography

Abstract

This article explores my participation in teacher professional development (PD) practices. In a form of an autoethnography, I present an account of my experiences in self-directed PD activities and institution-mandated ones, highlighting benefits of PD activities that were self-initiated. My self-directed PD activities seem to promote ongoing engagements. In this article, I also reflect on how financial costs affected my attitude towards institution-mandated PD. However, in self-directed PD, I invested my time and financial resources. This article also highlights the way self-directed PD activities shaped my worldview, from questioning the legitimacy of qualitative research to celebrating the subjective human experience.