Teacher Professional Learning Research Articles

Transformational leadership and job satisfaction in vocational high schools in Türkiye: a multilevel mediation model of teacher professional learning and self-efficacy

PurposeIn recent decades, researchers have increasingly begun to study the effects of transformational leadership on various teachers’ attitudes in K-12 settings. However, studies on the effect of transformational leadership on the job satisfaction of vocational high school teachers are not sufficient. Therefore, in this study, the nature of the relationship between transformational leadership and job satisfaction in Turkish vocational high schools was examined.Design/methodology/approachThe study data came from 847 teachers working at 82 state vocational high schools located in 12 regions in Türkiye. To test the research model, we conducted multilevel structural equation modeling to explore the structural relationships between transformational leadership, teacher professional learning, teacher’ self-efficacy and job satisfaction.FindingsThe analysis confirms that teacher professional learning and self-efficacy are prominent mediators in the relationship between transformational leadership and job satisfaction in Turkish vocational high schools.Originality/valueThe present study is expected to contribute to the body of research focusing on the effects of transformational leadership on job satisfaction in vocational high schools. Implications for theory, practice and policy are discussed.

Troubled times and seeds of hope: some reflections on teacher professional learning as praxis development

ABSTRACT This short reflection explores both the challenges and potentials of teacher professional learning in contemporary times. It argues that the neoliberal logics of professional development as deployed in many contexts around the world limit and curtail the potential for teachers to engage in generative professional learning that fosters growth and renewal. It suggests that understanding professional learning as praxis development, as advanced in the papers in this Special Issue provides a source of hope and a critical way forward for educators in these troubled times.

Sustaining Teacher Professional Learning in STEM: Lessons Learned from an 18-Year-Long Journey into TPACK-Guided Professional Development

This article is a self-narrative of our 18-year research into the technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK)-guided professional development of teachers in ICT-enhanced mathematics learning. Using autoethnography as the methodology to elucidate our transformative personal evolution in implementing the TPACK model, we describe how we conceptualized and enacted the TPACK framework across three distinct phases of our research trajectory. In the first phase, our efforts focused on offering afternoon seminars and workshops on using educational software. Mathematics teachers attended the seminars and workshops voluntarily. In the second phase, we concentrated on designing programs guided by the principles of adult education, which emphasize the importance of learner autonomy and relevance, and socio-constructivist views of teacher professional growth, which stress the role of collaboration and reflection in learning. In the final phase, we adopted a systemic, school-based approach to investigating and expanding TPACK for mathematics and other STEM/STEAM teachers. At the end of each phase’s description, we delve into the profound lessons learned and how these led to a paradigm shift, expanding our perspective on TPACK as practitioners and researchers. Finally, we present a set of recommendations for future research and practice aimed at facilitating the sustainability of STEM/STEAM teacher professional learning initiatives.

Learning leading - responsiveness in leading professional learning

ABSTRACT Teachers’ professional learning is closely connected to and dependent on different leading practices. Teachers professional learning is regarded as a key factor in successful school development, and development leaders at different levels are assigned to provide for and support such learning. However, the connection between leading and learning needs to be further explored. In this article, we focus specifically on development leaders’ leading practice when leading professional learning. Based on the theory of practice architectures, the study explores the interplay between development leaders and teacher leaders in a professional development programme, where the leading and learning practices of the different leaders meet. The findings show that development leaders’ leading practice is characterised by responsiveness to ideas of successful leading, to experiences and observations of leading practices, to teacher leaders’ understanding and to their own leading practices. Through these types of responsiveness, a formative aspect of leading unfolds where the interplay between development leaders’ leading and teacher leaders’ learning practices appears. We refer to this as learning leading.

Organizational climate of kindergartens and teacher professional learning: mediating effect of teachers’ collective efficacy and moderating effect of mindfulness in teaching

IntroductionThis study was aimed at testing a moderated mediation model of teaching mindfulness and teachers’ collective efficacy in the relationships between the organizational climate of kindergartens and teacher professional learning.MethodsA sample of 1,095 kindergarten teachers completed self-report questionnaires assessing their perceptions of the organizational climate of kindergartens, collective efficacy, teaching mindfulness, and professional learning.ResultsControlling for teaching experience and kindergarten level, the results show that kindergarten organizational climate significantly and positively predicted teacher professional learning and the collective efficacy of teachers played a partial mediating role between them.Furthermore, moderation analysis revealed that teaching mindfulness moderated the relationship between kindergarten organizational climate and teacher professional learning.DiscussionThese results expand our understanding of how the organizational climate of kindergartens affects teacher professional learning. In practice, professional learning of kindergarten teachers can be facilitated by creating an open organizational climate and improving their ability to perceive the collective. Furthermore, the moderating role of teaching mindfulness suggests that intervening in teachers’ teaching mindfulness possibly is an influential way to maximize the impact of kindergarten organizational climate on professional learning.

How does leadership affect teacher collaboration? Evidence from teachers in US schools

ABSTRACT The research literature reports that teacher collaboration has great potential to increase various teachers’ competencies; however, less has been said about how leaders can facilitate and support the development of these collaborations. This study examines the relative impact of distributed leadership practices, teacher professional learning, and innovative climate on teacher collaboration. Data are from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS). The sample consists of 2,324 teachers from 159 US lower secondary schools. Results indicate that distributed leadership has a direct and indirect impact on teacher collaboration in that professional learning and innovative climate serve as mediators for the leadership–collaboration relationship. The findings imply a potential benefit to be gained from distributing leadership among various stakeholders throughout the school, as well as expanding access to improve collaborative pedagogical practice among teachers.

An implementation case study for the Response to Intervention (RTI) approach for oral language and reading instruction in the early years of primary school

ABSTRACT In this paper, we report the initial stages of Response to Intervention (RTI) implementation in one school that participated in the Getting it Right from the Start (GIRFTS) pilot study. Implementation of an RTI framework for oral language and reading was supported by teacher professional learning and a dedicated Implementation Support Partner (ISP). Participants were interviewed to explore their perceptions of the change process and identify barriers and enablers to implementation. Thematic analysis was used to identify factors that supported the implementation of RTI, including strategic collegial relationships, teacher motivation, and a desire to achieve consistency of assessment and instruction. The ISP was seen as a crucial coaching role for keeping implementation on track, providing feedback and advice, and helping teachers translate professional learning into their school context. This study highlights some key factors that schools and policy-makers should focus on to promote successful early implementation of RTI approaches.

Uncovering the role of principals in enhancing teacher professional learning in a centralized education system

PurposeCurrent school leadership research has primarily utilized quantitative methods to explore the relationship between leadership and teacher learning. However, there is a notable gap in understanding how principals facilitate professional learning, especially in centralized educational settings. This study aims to address this gap by examining the role of school leadership in enhancing teacher professional learning within a highly centralized education system.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative case study delves into the lived experiences of 15 teachers and eight school leaders in eight primary schools in Mashhad, Iran. Through semistructured interviews, researchers employed open and axial coding to systematically explore and categorize qualitative data. The study focuses on understanding the role of principal leadership in facilitating teacher professional learning by connecting themes and sub-themes across transcripts.FindingsEffective principals worked on the cultivation of a culture that champions perpetual personal growth and development, the nurturing of a collaborative learning community, and the provision of essential resources and support. Findings showed the pivotal role of principals in promoting teachers' self-development, facilitating idea exchange and acknowledging their efforts. Principals appeared as key to encouraging information sharing, fostering collective learning, promoting professional development, overseeing teaching practices and ensuring the availability of resources to cultivate a supportive climate in a centralized education context.Originality/valueWe concluded that in centralized education, leadership practices for promoting teacher learning share similarities and differences with decentralized settings. The findings offer guidance for principals in centralized systems, supporting them in facilitating teacher professional learning in their schools.

Teacher leadership in professional learning communities in early childhood education: A Chinese perspective

To address the research gap in exploring teacher leadership and professional learning community (PLC) in early childhood education in China, this study explored how PLC members enacted leadership and how preschool principals influenced the enactment of such leadership. Purposive sampling was used to select research participants based on the current local governmental preschool quality ratings: Excellent, Good, and Average. Data were collected from three public preschools with corresponding levels of autonomy and hierarchical structures, and semistructured interviews were conducted with nine preschool practitioners. In terms of roles, PLC leaders served as pseudo leaders, and classroom teachers served as active learners but passive leaders in PLCs. PLC members implemented strategies that included the provision of learning support and communication to facilitate PLCs. Although preschool principals were found to serve as helmsmen, they positively managed the learning programmes and invited experts to conduct teacher training.

The sushi train of professional learning: teachers self-driving learning using a social networking website

ABSTRACT There is continuing uncertainty about the nature of teacher professional learning using social networking websites (SNWs) and how using these platforms influences teacher practice. Findings from the authors’ small-scale, qualitative study in Australia into English teacher use of one global SNW for professional learning showed participant innovative and organic engagement with this social media for self-directed, personally relevant, practice-informing learning. Thematic data analysis revealed detail about teachers using the SNW’s features and spaces for curating eclectic content gathered through personal and professional interactions. Engaging with varied colleagues, ideas and resources, participants developed individually specific ways of capturing transient learning opportunities for informing practice and reconceptualising understandings of professional learning and teacher roles. Emergent knowledge about teachers accessing, transforming and applying reconstructed knowledge to practice enabled generation of a model representing teacher knowledge transfer using one SNW. The study findings suggest cause for recognising the potential for using this SNW in effective teacher professional learning.

Beyond the walls of formality: the role of non-formal science activities in teachers’ professional development

ABSTARCT This study analysed secondary school teachers’ self-reported learning during their participation in a long-term, non-formal scientific activity in the form of a crystal-growing contest. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to explore in-service teachers’ experiences and describe the different types of learning that they report they have acquired due to their participation. Data were collected over a period of four years using an open-ended questionnaire. Qualitative methods were used for the data analysis to construct categories and identify emerging themes. The outcomes of the analysis were the identification of several types of learning gains that highlighted some of the potential benefits of introducing non-formal environments as an option for in-service teachers professional learning.

What a study of educator evaluation taught us about professional learning

After years evaluating teacher professional learning programs, researchers Andrew J. Wayne, Jordan Rickles, Mengli Song, Seth Brown, and Michael S. Garet describe a study that changed their perspective. The study’s takeaways about the design of teacher professional learning are important for everyone who seeks to create systems to support teaching and learning. The findings call attention to the value of streamlined, high-quality programs for improving performance outcomes for teachers and students.

Enacting powerful knowledge: overcoming the chasm of curriculum and teaching through teacher professionalism

ABSTRACT In this article, I examine how teachers can enact ‘powerful knowledge’ (PK)—a curriculum principle proposed by Michael Young—by linking it with the scholarship of teacher professionalism (TP). Despite the significance of teachers’ role in curriculum enactment, effort to understand this topic has been insufficient. I first indicate that separating the curriculum from teaching, as proposed by Young, is not applicable in schools, and it could rather confine TP limited to how to teach. Instead, by utilizing the concepts of ‘transformation’ and ‘recontextualisation’, I support that curriculum making and teaching is an interconnected process that calls for extensive teacher intervention based on profound professionalism. By integrating key ideas from the literature on TP, I argue three requirements should be met for the meaningful enactment of PK by teachers: first, a national curriculum grounded in the principles of PK and transformation/recontextualisation; second, alteration of the demanded professionalism assigned by external authorities; and finally, comprehensive and autonomous teacher professional learning for enacting good judgement regarding what, why and how to teach.

A roadmap for virtual professional learning: Bringing inquiry science practices to life through teacher professional community

AbstractAccording to the Next Generation Science Standards, three‐dimensional teaching challenges educators to adopt an inquiry approach through science and engineering practices aligned with disciplinary core ideas and crosscutting concepts. Few teachers today feel confident in their ability to orchestrate such lessons. Teaching inquiry science takes time and hard work. It also requires collaborative professional learning communities that support teachers in overcoming typical classroom challenges. This article describes an effective approach for facilitating professional learning that supports inquiry science teaching. Since the COVID pandemic, more teachers are familiar with videoconferencing and may even have initiated or expanded their use of asynchronous text based discussion. A hybrid combination of these platforms provides an effective, two‐fold strategy for facilitating a teacher professional learning community (PLC) that engages teachers in deepened reflection and sustained collaboration with colleagues. To illustrate how this approach can be successfully adopted, I draw from a recent example of the InquirySpace PLC that unfolded during the final year of a National Science Foundation‐funded educational research project. Key to the success of this PLC was a combination of responsiveness to teachers’ support requests, a warm and encouraging tone, orchestrating interactive engagement, and the showcasing of PLC member voices.

Leaning Into Difficult Topics: Inquiry Communities as Teacher Professional Learning for Turbulent Times

Although teachers make frequent decisions about whether and how to address difficult topics, they typically do so with minimal support. This article reports a case study of an inquiry community of 20 educators who engaged in practitioner inquiry as professional learning for addressing the difficult topics that they teach within their curricula or otherwise encounter within their professional practices. Through an inductive thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 12 community participants, the article’s authors identified four themes characterizing how the inquiry community supported teachers to lean into the difficult topics they believed they needed to address. The community helped teachers define difficult-topics inquiry while connecting them across divergent political and professional perspectives. The community assisted teachers in engaging difficult topics through purposefully structured inquiry talk, and it prompted them to (re)conceptualize difficult-topics teaching as inquiry. The article demonstrates the potential of difficult-topics inquiry communities as professional learning for turbulent times.

The effect of department leadership on teacher professional learning in China: A multilevel moderated mediation model

There is growing interest in the topic of middle-level leadership, including department and subject leaders. However, published research has largely failed to consider the underlying mechanisms through which middle-level leaders influence teacher professional learning. This study investigated how and under what conditions department leadership is beneficial to teacher professional learning. This research examined “school collectivism” as a boundary condition that was hypothesized to influence the effects of departmental leadership on teacher resilience and professional learning. Survey data on these constructs were collected among 3219 teachers in 121 primary and middle schools located in mainland China. Multilevel moderated mediation modeling was employed to assess the simultaneous effects of conditional and mediating factors on teacher engagement in professional learning. The results revealed that department leadership could influence teacher resilience which also mediated the relationship between department leadership and teacher professional learning. This indirect effect of department leadership on teacher professional learning was strengthened when school collectivism was reinforced. The findings add to the current literature first by empirically verifying the impact of middle-level leaders on teachers, as well as by highlighting school-level conditions that can shape the exercise of middle-level leadership.

Global education reform and the Swedish CPD market: restricted professional learning and the power of ideology

ABSTRACT Against the backdrop of global convergences in education reforms, a growing focus on teacher competences has emerged in European policy discourses about teacher professionalism and professional learning and development that has driven an expanding international and national CPD market involving both state and private operators. Developments in Sweden are an example, and the aim of this article is to identify and explore the discourses on teacher professional learning that seem to proliferate on this newly emerged and expanding market and their connections with and consequences for teacher professionalism. Two sets of data have fed the analysis. These are (a) CPD invoices and (b) interviews with school principals. The analysis indicates that the dominant discourses discursively shape teacher professionalism in relation to ideas about teachers as learners as collegial consumers of knowledge. Policy recommendations about peer learning become a subordinated element of a dominant discourse that prioritises and privileges the agency of knowledge producers, such as consultancies, compared to other actors as intermediaries. Commodification is a new key intermediary process in professional learning for teacher professional development.

Linear and nonlinear relationships between instructional leadership and teacher professional learning through teacher self-efficacy as a mediator: a partial least squares analysis

Although the investigation of instructional leadership and teacher professional learning is well-documented in the literature, one overlooked question concerns the linear and nonlinear relationships between these two variables. This study aims to examine the linear and nonlinear relationships of principal instructional leadership on teacher professional learning through teacher self-efficacy as a mediator. This study has collected 335 teacher samples encompassing both primary and secondary school levels in Penang, Malaysia. The analysis of data utilised partial least-squares structural equation modelling. The findings indicated a significant positive linear relationship between instructional leadership and teacher-professional learning. Likewise, there exists a significant mediating effect of teacher self-efficacy between instructional leadership on teacher professional learning. There exists a significant nonlinear relationship between principal instructional leadership on teacher self-efficacy and teacher professional learning respectively. The structural model exhibits a significantly high level of predictive power for in-sample and out-of-sample. This study offers theoretical and methodological advancements in comprehending the complex relationships between instructional leadership and teacher outcomes. It proposes that forthcoming studies could adopt a combination of linear and non-linear relationships to achieve robust empirical findings.

In the Crucible of a Professional Learning Community: Becoming a Highly Effective Teacher in Challenging Contexts

Despite evidence for the established role of a professional learning community in supporting teacher professional learning and development, it is still among the most under-utilized resources available to teachers. The current study in a major educational institution in the Gulf sets an example for establishing professional learning communities (PLCs) in unusually challenging academic contexts. These contexts often lack support from the administration for teacher professional learning and development, and there is minimal collaboration among colleagues. While synthesizing ideas from mainstream literature and social psychology, the study expands the conceptual base for establishing PLCs and offers a strategic vision for developing highly effective teachers through participation in a synergistic PLC. Following Interpretive Research Paradigm, the study employed ethnographic research methodology to understand how the participants in the study describe themselves and their actions as well as their interactions with others. Based on a thematic analysis conducted using NVivo software, the findings suggest that goal-oriented collaboration of teachers in a PLC, where empathy, maturity, and abundance mentality are practised, can prepare teachers for professional excellence, leading to significant improvements in student learning and achievement. Keywords: ELT in the Gulf, professional learning community, student achievement, synergy, teacher professional development

Seven insecure academic conditions for students as a basis for implementing teacher professional learning

Student academic performance as a measure of future success. Students who can develop academic performance in the classroom and outside the school are a big part of the success process. However, some children have academic insecurity problems that impact academic performance and may influence future success. Professional teachers must be able to analyze students in this condition. This research aims to analyze students' educational insecurity conditions using seven indicators—a quantitative study with a survey with random sampling on 521 students at school. The academic insecurity scale distributed to students randomly was analyzed through percentages and standard deviations with four categories: very high, high, low, and very low. The results of the research show that the average student's insecure academic condition is in a standard category on seven indicators: students do not want to get out of their comfort zone, like to compare themselves with other individuals, look down on themselves, have to get praise and recognition from other individuals, avoid interaction with the surrounding environment, experiencing failure, and lack of gratitude. Then, 54% of students have an insecure academic condition in the low category and 14% in the shallow category. Academic insecurity is also in the high category at 29% and very high at 3%. The high and very high categories require significant attention from schools and teachers at schools with exceptional handling. Professional teachers must be able to implement fair and enjoyable learning to prevent gaps who experience academic insecurity because they do not receive proper appreciation in the teaching.