Personal Professional Learning Research Articles

“It shouldn’t be something you have to create on your own.” Personal practical knowledge construction and professional learning for teachers in Swedish school-age educare.

Teachers who work in school-age educare (SAEC) in Sweden possess a variety of educational qualifications. They hold a dual role working as teachers both within the compulsory program and school-age educare. This dual competence requirement means that their professional needs are unique and often different from that of their colleagues who only work in the compulsory school system (Berglund, Lager, Lundkvist and Gustavsson Nyckel, 2019). They reside in a complex context when it comes to opportunities for constructing their personal professional knowledge. Considering that already in 2021, the government announced the creation of a national professional learning program (Regeringen 2021), it is essential to understand what type of professional learning is deemed needed by the SAEC teachers themselves. Through narrative interviews with SAEC teachers, this study aims to map an understanding of how the teachers construct their personal professional knowledge as SAEC teachers. The main research question in this study is: How do SAEC teachers describe the role of professional learning as part of creating and developing their personal professional knowledge? The findings indicate a need for a systematic approach to recognize the qualification of experienced teachers and create a framework for professional learning opportunities for all teachers in SAEC.

Rosbercon Girls' Grammar School: the adoption of innovative educational practices in early 20th century Australia

PurposeThis paper explores the context within which experimental, pedagogically progressive schools were established in Australia during the first decades of the 20th century.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a case study of the establishment of Rosbercon Girls’ Grammar School. It draws on educator accounts, archival documents and contemporary literature to provide a brief narrative of the events leading to the opening of the school; to sketch the family of educators who were pivotal in making it a reality; and to identify key aspects of the social and legislative context that made such an initiative possible.FindingsRosbercon was established at a time when a modest school could be established relatively easily by a small group of educators with a shared vision. The early 20th century was a moment of national optimism in Australia, where an appetite for new educational ideas created a climate in which innovative educators found fertile soil for their pedagogical experiments and adaptation of emerging ideas from around the world. Their efforts were facilitated by an emerging global network of personal interactions, professional learning, professional associations and educational literature.Originality/valueThis paper addresses the relative lack of scholarly examination of the origins of Rosbercon Girls’ Grammar School, an institution that previous authors have identified as Australia’s oldest experimental school. The case study also contributes to a broader appreciation of the trajectory of progressive education during the early 20th century.

Medical Educator Teaching Portfolio: A Brief Yet Necessary Consideration

Evaluation of medical teacher performances is necessary to build better educational goals in training medical students into qualified physicians. Portfolio is widely used in any field of education, including medicine. The use of portfolio in evaluating the medical teacher performance may help finding the best way possible to improve the quality of medical education. Medical educator teaching portfolio (METP) could be implemented by analyzing the institutional context while maintaining its main component of evaluation, personal professional development, learning process, and additional features. The challenges of implementation of METP including human resources, funding, workloads, and technology should be addressed by faculty members to overcome. Consideration of the importance of METP shows how far we strive for ensuring the best quality for education in medical institution. Keywords: medical teacher, evaluation, portfolio, medical education

Interpreting the Film "Sherlock on the Plain" from a Semiotic Perspective

Although Sherlock on the Plain is a small-budget film, it was released in 2019 to rave reviews and has been highly praised and recommended by numerous film gurus on various social media platforms. The film's unique style, which incorporates various seemingly conflicting elements, is of great learning value both in terms of film text and aesthetic style, and the analysis of various symbols in the film is extremely instructive for the author's personal professional learning. This paper will attempt to analyze the meaning of various symbols in the film from the perspective of symbolic narrative, to understand the director's observation and reflection on the social reality in the film, and to explore the resonance between the Chinese emotion in the rural "earthy" film and the audience.

An EFL Instructor’s Study and Teach Abroad Experiences and Complementary Views from Learners

The present qualitative case study aimed to explore the influences of an EFL instructor’s study and teach abroad experiences on her classroom implementations. It additionally investigated her students’ responses to the reflections of her study and teach abroad in the classroom. The findings revealed that these experiences contributed to the instructor’s both personal development and professional learning and further had impacts on her teaching practices. An in-depth analysis of multiple data tools; a semi-structured, individual interview with the instructor, her journal entries, and an open-ended questionnaire from 43 language learners, informed that study and teach abroad experiences contributed to the instructor’s world knowledge and intellectual growth through her teaching and other academic endeavors at an abroad university. It was also found that the learners appreciated the instructor’s explicitly referring to her international contacts as a means of providing authentic input, enriching the lesson content, fostering engagement in the class, and raising learners’ intercultural awareness. This study suggests developing teacher interculturality via study and teach abroad programs should be encouraged to better address intercultural topics in the language class. The process of preparing intercultural language teachers could be aided by teacher study and/or teach abroad programs.

Exploring Creation of Connected Classroom in Rural College: Challenges and Implications

Education plays an important role in the lives of individuals. Education helps the individuals in developing skills, capabilities, attitudes and behavior (Saleem & Shah, 2015). In developing countries like Pakistan access towards education is not satisfactory. In Pakistan, at the higher education, arts subjects generally and science subjects particularly are not with in the access of rural people. Because there are very few colleges in rural areas, and these colleges have shortage of subject specialist faculty. The available faculty is only for teaching compulsory courses and limited option of humanities group courses. As a result, the rural communities are deprived from their basic right of getting education and unable to utilize their potential in their areas of interest. Connected classroom is one of the technological innovation that can be used to overcome the shortage of teaching faculty issue in rural areas. Connected classrooms are created by using new technology tools to build online networks and develop personal learning resources through collaboration with personal learning networks and professional learning communities (Siemens, 2005). t was observed that in remote and rural areas of Pakistan, the opportunities of higher education are limited. After completing the secondary school certificate, students have limited option to choose subjects of their interest. As a result, either they select the subjects in which they are not interested or move towards cities to get better education opportunities. But it is a sad fact that majority of students cannot afford to travel towards colleges in big cities, and have to left their journey of education. Therefore, this study introduced connected classroom technology for rural and remote communities at college level to improve student's enrollment in rural area colleges instead of moving towards urban colleges. More importantly, it will help to overcome the problem of shortage of subject teachers at the rural colleges as well. Keywords: Connected classroom; teaching faculty; rural college; rural student

An industry-inspired civil engineering curriculum

This paper describes the design of an undergraduate civil engineering curriculum that uses industry approaches to personal professional development and problem-based learning to educate the graduates that industry needs. In contrast to traditional module-based assessment, this curriculum is assessed at a programme level, enabling evaluation of professional skills from early on. This also give coherence across the curriculum, with reduced assessment loads of improved quality. Educators have been allowed to focus on educating students in their broad understanding and skills, which will benefit their long-term employability and adaptability.

Teaching medicine of the person to medical students during the beginning of their clerkships

This article describes how medicine of the person is taught to 4th year medical students in Groningen, The Netherlands, as part of the teaching programme ‘Professional Development’. In that year, the students start with their clerkships. In this transitional phase from medical student to young doctor, issues of professional identity are raised. It is an intense period with feelings of uncertainty and overwhelming experiences. Therefore, parallel to the clerkships we have organised 28 meetings of 2 hours with extra time dedicated to reflection and learning. These groups consist of 10-12 students with a rotating student chair under supervision of an experienced teacher, or, “coach”. We focus on personal and professional development by reflecting on work-based experiences. In the first hour the students discuss in a structured way a critical incident experienced by one of them. Learning experiences include personal learning (as emotions), skills (as empathy development) and professional learning (discovering the profession). In the second hour the students discuss set medical-ethical dilemmas. The coach facilitates the group discussion and oversees the group dynamics. During the year, the students work on their portfolio including writing a personal development plan. In 3 individual interviews with the coach this plan is monitored. In the final interview the students are assessed by their coach on their professional development during the year. In this paper we present the results of the evaluation of this programme ‘Professional Development’ by the students and The Netherlands Association for Medical Education.

Redefining professional identity: the voice of a language teacher in a context of collaborative learning

Following a narrative and biographic approach, in this study, we present the case of an in-service language teacher and her professional learning trajectory in the context of the project ‘Languages and education: constructing and sharing training’. This project aimed at the construction of a collaborative teacher education context for learning and transformation of experiences, views and practices in language education, and involved teachers, teacher educators and researchers. Based on a single case study, the analysis tries to disclose the teacher’s discursive displacements as hints of professional transformation while she reinterprets the learning taking place in the collaborative education process. The signs of change are visible in the way she constructs meanings regarding her professional identity, re-identifies her mission as a language teacher and reconsiders her professional identity. Finally, we reflect upon how collaborative teacher education scenarios may foster teachers’ personal professional learning and renewed self-images.

Signifying authenticity in academic practice: a framework for better understanding and harnessing portfolio assessment

Portfolios are an assessment tool that help frame expectations of personal professional learning about teaching in higher education, a key dimension of academic practice. In this paper, we review our experiences in both supporting academic colleagues to develop a teaching portfolio, and in their assessment. We argue that the authenticity of the account offered is key: participants should aspire to render an authentic account of themselves, their context, actions and their professional stance. Likewise, assessors need to verify that an account is authentic. We posit five signifiers of authenticity: biographical/professional context; practice development and experience of practice; integration of core concepts and key ideas from the literature, especially evaluation and conceptions of teaching; purpose and values in continuing professional learning (CPL); coherence of writing, vocabulary used, writing style, etc. These are intended to help course leaders and conveners of CPL activities to articulate what it is that is being sought from participants, and hence clarify expectations for both participants doing the learning and for disciplinary colleagues assisting with the assessment.

Taking ownership: The story of a successful partnership for change in a Pacific Island science teacher education setting

This paper explores an example of a partnership approach that appears to be producing sustainable change in a Pacific Islands education setting. The people involved report on the way science education staff from the Solomon Islands School of Education (SOE) and staff from the Faculty of Education University of Waikato (UOW), New Zealand worked together on the redevelopment of undergraduate science education courses for the SOE. Together we sought to identify significant factors supporting the process. The development required significant change and posed a number of challenges yet resulted in local staff producing high quality materials and programmes and taking ownership of ongoing development. More importantly, there was significant personal professional learning in both science education and initial teacher education for local Solomon Islands staff. Factors contributing to the success of the partnership are explored through the perceptions of the participants and include the quality of relationship, mutual respect, emphasis on conceptual agreement when working together, and the involvement of local staff in decision-making.

Understanding the awakening spirit of a professional teaching force

Social, economic and technological changes on a global scale are challenging traditional forms of knowledge and educational practice. In response, educators worldwide are finding ways to forge new roles, identities and relationships. This paper recognises pressures on the teaching force in a global climate of educational reform. Drawing on data from experienced teachers, the paper elucidates that rich opportunities for professional learning are situated in collective review of challenges and critical incidents where teachers’ guilt can be addressed with the choice for personal growth and professional learning. With a framework for tracking how teachers can be liberated from downward drift to negative sentiments, the paper concludes by highlighting the creative energy inside teachers who can rediscover deep values in the realities of their everyday professional lives in a journey of co-learning and reclaiming inner power.

Case stories of facilitating professional development

This article reports on an 18-month study of teacher study group facilitation in a 25 district consortium. The teacher study group was viewed as an alternative form of professional development within the context of a funded project. Case story, as a form of narrative inquiry, was used to work with participants to construct their own stories of personal experiences as members and facilitators of teacher study groups. The stories shared in this study indicate that facilitation of and participation in a study group as an alternative form of professional development affords an opportunity for transformation through personal growth and professional learning.

Teacher Efficacy and Teacher Professional Learning: Implications for School Leaders

This study examines teachers’ professional development experiences through the lenses of personal teaching efficacy and professional learning. This qualitative study examined the professional development experiences of teachers with either high or low senses of personal teaching efficacy. The study found that the level of personal teaching efficacy influences how and in what ways individual teachers experience professional development. The findings provide support for approaches to professional development that address individual needs. Also discussed are implications for school leaders and others charged with establishing professional learning environments that enhance teachers’ efficacy beliefs.Theories of professional learning underscore the importance of understanding how various individual characteristics such as career stage, level of expertise, and professional field influence professional learning. While empirical studies in these areas exist in fields such as medicine, law and business, relatively few studies focus on teacher perspectives on professional development (Cervero, 1988). As Cervero (1988) discusses, the type and quality of professional learning that occurs in practice depends, in part, on individual characteristics, including efficacy.Understanding how teachers experience professional learning is vital to create valuable (and valued) professional learning experiences. Few studies have examined this phenomenon in depth. Those that have, typically group teachers by career stage or content area. This study began to map teacher learning experiences according personal teaching efficacy and provided insight for future and practicing school leaders into the nature of teacher professional learning—a phenomenon that encompasses formal and informal learning, and is experienced differently by individual teachers. By understanding the role of characteristics such as personal teaching efficacy on professional learning, school leaders have more reason to promote professional learning opportunities that address teachers’ diverse needs.