Transformative Professional Development Research Articles

Cultivating teacher leadership: evidence form a transformative professional development model

ABSTRACT This study delves into the transformative impact of a professional development model (PDM) across three affiliated private schools in Beirut, Lebanon, spanning three years, with a primary focus on nurturing teacher leadership. At the heart of this PDM, teachers assumed the role of trainers, guiding their colleagues during dedicated professional development days. Employing a grounded theory approach, the study conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 teacher trainers and engaged with three school principals. The research reveals five central categories. Two categories revolve around the evidence highlighting the progression of teacher leadership: (1) accessing and utilising research to enhance teaching and student learning, and (2) promoting professional learning for continuous improvement. Additionally, three categories elucidate the elements instrumental in facilitating the PDM's role in cultivating teacher leadership: reciprocal empowerment, conceptual awareness, and collaborative metacognition. This model redefines traditional top-down leadership structures, allowing teachers to actively mold their professional development journey, creating a more collaborative and intentional approach to teacher leadership.

Teachers’ beliefs about technology integration in Ghana: a qualitative study of teachers’, headteachers’ and education officials’ perceptions

With increasing policy interest in improving educational outcomes, technology integration has become a requirement in Ghana’s education system, albeit with minimal impact on student learning. Several studies focus on identifying barriers to effective integration but pay scant consideration to the deeper reasons why teachers use technology. This qualitative study aimed to explore the underlying beliefs that shape teachers’ decision-making and thinking regarding technology integration. The study used open-ended questions and interviews with five education officials, twenty teachers, and five headteachers, and an ‘ICT Pedagogical Beliefs Classification Framework’ as a lens for interpreting and categorising teacher beliefs. Thematic analysis of findings revealed four main beliefs: productivity tools for teaching and lesson preparation; developing students’ ICT skills; meeting curriculum expectations, and engaging students in authentic teaching. Evidently, teachers are enthusiastic about using technology, but their beliefs indicate that they view technology primarily as a tool for productivity to supplement existing teaching practices, which they value. Findings indicate that most teachers espouse teacher-centred ICT beliefs, implying the need for transformative professional development that enables change in teachers’ beliefs to embrace the view of technology as a pedagogical tool that can facilitate constructive pedagogy and deep student learning.

In Search of Belonging Online: Achieving Equity through Transformative Professional Development

Abstract Online classes hold the potential to expand college access to Black, Latino/a/x, Indigenous, and other students of color who must be supported to diversify the STEM workforce. Research shows that fostering belonging is key to the academic success of students from minoritized groups. However, online classes often lack interpersonal interactions and are often left out of research about the positive impacts of belonging. This paper summarizes an equity-focused STEM grant project that produced an openly-shared online professional development program, the Humanizing Online STEM Academy. Through the Academy, STEM faculty are introduced to a model of humanized online teaching that centers belonging as a way to address equity gaps. Participant survey responses present opportunities for future research about belonging in online courses.

Formative interventions for science teachers’ expansive learning and practices with multilingual learners: A case study from Lebanon

ABSTRACT This paper illustrates utilising cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) and the methodology of formative intervention as a responsive capacity-building framework for enhancing science teachers’ professional development and system-level capacity in multilingual settings. We report findings from the initial Change Laboratory (CL) meetings of an ongoing formative intervention project with two schools. CL meetings are explored as ‘dialogic’ spaces for teachers, teacher-leaders and researchers to explore research-based notions alongside practical knowledge for transformative professional development that upholds teacher agency and leverages multilingual students’ diverse resources. Data included meeting transcripts, classroom observations, researcher notes and classroom artefacts. Results showed that higher levels of dialogic struggle around the role of language in teaching and learning science allowed one school’s participants to challenge deficit orientations that allot the home language a lower status and to begin adopting more linguistically responsive practices to enhance their diverse students’ science learning. We discuss the differences between the two schools through the notion of ‘boundary-crossing.’

Adapting English Teacher Professional Development to Shifting Educational Situations in Higher Education: Trends and Prospects

This study explores the need for transforming professional development for English teachers. Similarly, it focuses on the overview of traditional professional development methods and proposes alternative approaches, such as personalized learning and collaborative communities of practice. In addition, the article highlights the importance of aligning professional development with the evolving demands of the English language curriculum and the challenges posed by digital technologies. The study explores the necessity of adapting English teacher professional development programs to changing educational conditions through thematic-based content analysis of the research found in Google Scholar and Eric databases. Furthermore, related papers and litmaps were used to analyze the authorship and coverage of the study. Recent research from the ERIC and Google Scholar databases strengthens the need for ongoing, workplace-based, and personalized professional development programs that are connected with the evolving demands of the English language curriculum and digital technology. The findings of this study, thus, reinforce the need for transformative professional development programs that are aligned with the changing demands of the English curriculum and digital technology and prioritize the individualized learning needs of instructors. The research underlines the necessity for English teachers to adjust their professional development practices to meet the ever-evolving requirements imposed by the English curriculum. The results suggest that professional development strategies should be adapted to meet the changing educational circumstances. Overall, the study offers guidelines for the design and implementation of transformative professional development programs that improve teacher learning and student outcomes.

A missed opportunity? Social media and pedagogy as teachers returned to school

Social media and social networking sites have become popular across governments, enterprises, and non-profit making organisations. Nevertheless, education has evidenced conflicting views around the role that social media ought to play in pedagogy. This thesis examines whether or not social media can be incorporated into pedagogy successfully. The research aims are to examine the current relationship between social media and pedagogy, to identify factors that influence teacher engagement, and to determine whether or not social media can make an impact on student engagement and performance. The study is underpinned by Trowler’s (2008) socio-cultural theory and the research is based on a mixed methods approach. I applied a phase of online quantitative surveys that were analysed using descriptive statistics and two subsequent phases of interviews that were analysed thematically. I adopted purposeful sampling to recruit 434 secondary teachers with QTS to participate in the study. The results show that there is little meaningful, transformative professional development in schools in respect of using social media for pedagogy (Kennedy 2005 and 2014). I argue that CPD in schools should focus on developing pedagogical strategies with technology as opposed to focusing on the technology in its own right. Furthermore, teachers’ reflections indicated that the differences between the social media platforms are profound; thus, grouping them together can become problematic. In other words, YouTube’s functionality is applied in an opposite way to Twitter’s and with different audiences. Additionally, the study has uncovered a lack of thought towards applying technology in education policymaking, and this became problematic for schools during the U.K. lockdown. The study’s major themes illuminate the challenges involved with successfully embedding technology in education, particularly social media.

Sustaining evolving teaching practicum models in higher education: A conversational ethnodrama between South African teacher educators

This article explores the evolving trajectory of the Teaching Practicum (TP) models within a selected South African teacher education institution (TEI) to accommodate the localised challenges of shifting from face-to-face support of professional learning towards online modes of delivery during Covid-19 times. Over time, even before the onset of Covid-19, the specific institution was characterised by increasing diversification of its student body and increased enrolment of student teachers resonating with similar patterns across other TEIs nationally. The study draws on the ethnographic tradition of celebrating participants’ lived experiences within the field of teacher education by capturing how a teaching practicum coordinator attempted to deal with complex and multiple challenges to enact and sustain a re-imagined TP programme. The pattern of responsiveness continues even as the pandemic (potentially) wanes. A reconstructed dialogue represents the responses of the internal coordinator within the institution (foregrounding changing operational concerns) and a senior teacher educator external to the institution (foregrounding shifting theoretical and policy considerations). Drawing from ethnodrama traditions, this dialogical conversation acknowledges the lived experiences of everyday designing, delivering and using TP models. It includes the hesitance of school mentors, student teachers and teacher educator supervisors to adopt alternative practices to conventionalised rituals of TP. The conversation questions the academic rationale of the various models of TP in their bolstering of student teachers’ professional learning. The study’s findings indicate that the successful implementation of a meaningful and contextualised revised TP curriculum necessitates re-imagining the roles of the various partners involved in the TP endeavour: who are co-responsible for conceptualising and ensuring transformative professional growth and development.

Effect of Principal Transformational Leadership Professional Development and Competence on the Profesonalism of State Junior High School Teachers in Balangan Regency

The achievement of educational goals in schools is strongly effectd by the attitude of the teacher in carrying out his professional duties. This fact requires teachers to have high competence and professionalism in carrying out their duties and functions, because teachers are figures who become role models for students and their environment. This study aims to identify and analyze the principal transformational leadership and professional development on the competence and professionalism of state junior high school teachers in Balangan district. This research is a research with a quantitative approach. The population of this study was 166 teachers. The research sample was 117 teachers who were selected by proportional random sampling which was determined by (proportional random sample). The sampling technique in this study used proportional random sampling. Data collection was carried out using instruments consisting of principal transformational leadership (27 items), teacher professional development (38 items), teacher competence (32 items) and teacher professionalism (28 items) which had been tested for validity and reliability. The research data were analyzed using path analysis. The results of this study conclude that there is a direct effect of the principal transformational leadership on teacher competence. There is a direct effect of professional development on teacher competence; There is a direct effect of the principal transformational leadership on teacher professionalism, There is a direct effect of professional development on teacher professionalism, There is a direct effect of competence on teacher professionalism, There is no indirect effect of the principal transformational leadership on professionalism through teacher competence and, There is no indirect effect of coaching profession towards professionalism through the competence of State Junior High School teachers in Balangan Regency.

Transformational learning of teachers

The authors of the article consider transformational education as a formation of sustainable professional development. Its appearance is associated with attempts to resolve many crises states of society, which indicate the destructive phenomena of any society, regardless of its socio-economic formation and political model of social development. Many scientists recognize that a more sustainable model of human development can be achieved through education. However, the classical learning model, which has shown its effectiveness in the past centuries, is now experiencing powerful pressure from modern information technologies. This article introduces readers to its main and universal theoretical and research positions. Since the practice of implementing transformational learning can vary not only depending on the conceptual approaches, but also the basic cultural features of the country implementing it. The article describes the results of transformational professional development of teachers in Russia and Kazakhstan, proving its effectiveness.

A transformative professional development model in current Egyptian reforms: A mixed-methods study

This mixed-methods study explores teachers, principals, and supervisors' personal experiences with and perspectives on the features of Discovery Education professional development (PD) programs as a transformative PD (TPD) model, which is implemented as a key component of current educational reforms in Egypt. Constructivist principles, the theory of change, and the transformative learning theory guide this study's framework. Quantitively, more than 4159 participants representing 8.31% of all enrolled teachers and supervisors in grades (G)10–11 PD program all over Egypt responded to an online survey in addition to providing artifacts collected as evidence to instructional transformations during Covid19. Qualitatively, a phenomenological study was conducted with a representative sample of twelve teachers and three principals participating in another two-year PD program about STEM culture implemented in six Egyptian governorates. Findings revealed that this TPD model adopted experiential learning by having teachers wear students' hats, reflect as teachers, apply in real classrooms, see change firsthand, and collectively exchange feedback with ongoing support from expert mentors, principals and supervisors who shared with teachers the same PD journey. The study also concluded that pairing TPD with new reforms such as, embedding technology for deep learning in a curriculum-based PD, inquiry-oriented assessment, research proven instructional strategies, and 21st century skills positively impacted educators' confidence in understanding and buying into these reforms. The study focuses on what works as a TPD model, and why participants' confidence was impacted. With such analysis, this can help structure future TPD models.

Promoting Equity, Diversity and Social Justice Through Faculty-Led Transformative Projects.

We present a transformative professional development project with a focus on equity, diversity and social justice (EDSJ) to raise cultural awareness among faculty, increase agency, and promote positive change through transformative projects. Twenty-three faculty members from nine different colleges located at a Research I university were provided with critical cultural awareness workshops and then supported to develop transformative projects related to EDSJ. Based on focus group interviews and pre-post surveys, we identified four themes and five categories: two outcome-related (Building Community and Transformative Actions) and two operational themes (Barriers and Facilitators). We conclude that faculty-centered and transformative professional development projects could significantly benefit all those interested in establishing a culturally inclusive, positive and responsive climate. Our study also contributes to the emerging research on scholar activism and provides a practical model for implementation.

2-Curious: jarring representations of the two-year-old in transformative continuous professional development (CPD)

ABSTRACT This paper explores how new materialist ideas informed a non-linear experimental approach to ‘continuous’ professional development (CPD). Experiences of professional development in the early years are diverse but remain at the heart of continuous improvement practices. In the UK, the roll-out of the ‘disadvantaged two-year-old’ offer increased demand for professional development, at a time when austerity impacted on training budgets. Where opportunities for professional development exist, the focus is typically on ‘best practice’ solutions, which often cling to developmental psychology. This paper focuses on the process of ‘continuous’ professional development inspired by new materialist thinking. It recognises that integral to quality early years’ provision are understandings of how children learn, but that this knowledge is embodied, always in movement and yet deeply situated. Focussing on the first CPD session, the glass jar, this paper assembles happenstance encounters from within and beyond the CPD session to explore how combinations of relational becomings are continuously changing as encounters and experiences spark new thinking and doing in diffusive and irrational ways. This paper emerges only as a resting place; writing becoming part of the movement needed in new materialist practices, vitally informing the transformative potential of CPD that continues to move.

Perspectives on Practice: The Edges of Opening: Trust and Transformation in Teacher Learning

An exploration of the role of trust in transformative professional development about poetry in kindergarten, through the lens of its effects in one classroom.

Transformative professional development for in-service teachers through international service learning

ABSTRACTTeachers who participate in learning and teaching abroad enhance their intercultural competence, develop more globally informed and critical perspectives on education, and improve their foreign language and teaching skills. However, most of the research on teacher study abroad has been conducted with pre-service rather than in-service teachers. To address study abroad designed for working teachers, this study analyzes a month-long, instructor-led program in San José, Costa Rica in which 10 primary and secondary in-service teachers of English as a Second Language (TESOL) from New York City volunteered as English teaching assistants. Participants also engaged in Spanish language learning both formally through university coursework as well as informally through homestay. A conceptual framework for the design of such programs is suggested, drawing on the literature on teacher study abroad and transformative learning theory, with implications for the personal and professional learning of in-service teachers.

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL): Transformative Professional Development for Teachers

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL): Transformative Professional Development for Teachers

TRANSFORMATIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR MATHEMATICS TEACHERS

This paper was an attempt to redesign the current professional development training for Mathematics teachers in the Philippines. Mathematics teachers claimed that most training and seminars they attended ignored their local work context; was routinely and was hardly applicable to their classroom milieu. By utilizing the transformative professional development training, the teachers identified the classroom issues that had confronted them; restructured their useful pedagogical ideas and instructional plans and materials; implemented these in their classrooms; and shared their reflections on the new teaching experiences. Qualitative data were gathered from focus group discussions and key informant interviews. University researchers (3), secondary Mathematics teachers (28), and students (250) from four rural public schools in the Hamiguitan Range participated. The teachers and students revealed that their lack of self and environmental understanding were the prevalent issues that led to critical behavior in Mathematical cognition and learning. By applying the transformative education in the classroom, promising results like better teacher performance, improved students' interest, and maximized student participation were evident. This transformative professional development training adequately responded to the teachers' work needs and was recommended to other areas of learning.

Transformational professional development: (re)claiming agency and change (in the margins)

ABSTRACTWith performativity and evidence-based teaching, the development of action research (AR) by teachers brings tensions and challenges as teachers move outside their comfort zones and question their practice. This article draws on a small-scale research study developed with teachers. It was funded as part of a professional development initiative by a Teaching School Alliance to support partner schools with university support to build teacher-led systematic research into everyday practice. The dataset combined interviews with teachers about their motivations and experiences, field notes from the sessions, the teachers’ final written reports and their evaluation surveys about the project. This article offers a unique perspective on teachers as researchers in a new age of work-based AR with the risk of research by teachers in schools being regarded as part of an uncritical ‘tick box’ performative and celebratory culture. However, the authors argue that teacher research can contribute to a transformational approach to professional development working as an antidote and a source of (re)professionalization based on the outcomes of collaboration, reflection and attention to the singularity of their ‘contexts-for action’ and specific pupils’ needs.

Academic Librarians Perceive Duration and Social Interaction as Important Elements for Professional Development

A Review of: Attebury, R. I. (2017). Professional development: A qualitative study of high impact characteristics affecting meaningful and transformational learning. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 43(3), 232-241. http://dx.doi.org//10.1016/j.acalib.2017.02.015 Abstract Objective – To understand the characteristics of meaningful and transformational professional development experiences of academic librarians. Design – Qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach. Setting – Public and private colleges and universities in the United States of America. Subjects – 10 academic librarians. Methods – The researcher selected 10 participants using an initial survey distributed through national library electronic mail lists. Two rounds of semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted over Skype during fall 2014 and spring 2015. The first round of interviews began with background questions about participants’ careers, then moved on to questions about professional development experiences that were meaningful and/or transformational. The responses from this first round of interviews were used to develop questions for a second round of interviews with the same participants. After completing the interviews, the researcher sent follow-up emails to participants in order to gather feedback on summaries and interpretations of interviews. The transcribed interviews were used to create an initial set of codes and then imported into NVivo for analysis using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach. Main Results – All participants reported on professional development experiences that they found to be meaningful. Half of the participants discussed professional development experiences that were transformational for their perceptions and practice of librarianship. The themes of duration and interaction were identified in every participant’s discussions of meaningful or transformational professional development. Reflection, discomfort, and self-awareness were also identified as prominent themes. Conclusion – The study found that two of the most important ingredients for meaningful and transformational professional development are activities that are sustained over time and that include social interaction. The participants perceived long-term, interactive professional development activities as opportunities to identify and address gaps in their professional knowledge, which benefits themselves and their organizations. On-the-job learning, single-theme workshops or institutes, and professional committee work were particularly promising forms of meaningful professional development. The author recommends that academic librarians who are interested in meaningful or transformational professional development look for activities that are sustained and interactive, that promote reflection, and that provide opportunities to increase self-awareness of gaps in knowledge. Facilitators of professional development activities should include interactive components and ensure that participants have a chance to stay in contact after the event in order to encourage long-term interaction and reflection.

Tackling sustainability

Transformative, innovative practices and sustainable professional development are not achieved just by attending workshops, seminars and specific designed teacher education courses, though these programmes may often include action research methodologies (Fullan, 2007; Vieira, Moreira & Peralta, 2014). Therefore, other ways for in-service teacher education should be sought, namely more flexible ways, suitable to specific educative contexts, which really address teachers’ concerns and needs, enabling self-directed professional development (PD) processes and simultaneously empowering teachers and strengthening their professional knowledge (PK). To meet all these requirements we believe that besides the committed and collaborative participation of teachers, PD processes should include leadership and supervision. This paper looks at the particular case of teaching Portuguese as heritage language (PHL) in Switzerland. It analyses the PD strategy designed by the pedagogical coordinator (PC), which was based on the conclusions of a previous study on PD (Gonçalves, 2011) and followed a job embedded approach in trying a direct connection between teacher’s work in the classroom and the PD teachers were provided, as argued by DiPaola and Hoy (2014). The study analyses the PD offers provided to the teachers from 2014 to 2016 in different perspectives – contents, structure, preparation, implementation, evaluation and outcomes. The data analysis indicates that the chosen PD strategy started by gathering the available knowledge, followed by putting it into circulation among the teachers, and finally tried to improve it, shaping its improvement with the active contribution of the teachers towards a joint planning of PD, which could be considered a step into co-designing teacher PD, towards its sustainability.

A Novel Approach to Professional Development in Middle School Science: Instructional Coaching by University Professors to Improve the Instructional Core

The current study was constructed based on the recommendations of a previous study (McHenry & Borger, 2013).Though inquiry-based teaching has long been touted as an effective pedagogy, its application by middle schoolscience teachers has been problematic. Using tools developed from the previous study in conjunction withprofessional development grounded in instructional coaching, the program attempted to support middle schoolteachers in making informed instructional decisions that enhance classroom practices to support students in reachingfull science proficiency. Over the two and one-half year span of the program, researchers found that middle schoolteachers were able to embrace major facets of the 5E model of inquiry. While their view of the nature of scienceexpanded slightly, they still struggle with ideas related to argumentation and theory building. The impediments thatinfluenced the success and continuation of the program were three-fold. There was a lack of administrativepartnership due to a change in upper-level district leadership. The decision to adopt new curricular materials wascounter to the goals of the inquiry-based teaching model and was adopted without discussion with the universitycoaches. There was inadequate time allotted to the program in the last year. Though administrative difficulties led tothe discontinuation of the program, the enthusiasm exhibited by the middle level teachers speaks to the need for aninstructional coaching partnership that provides this type of sustained, reform-based, transformational professionaldevelopment that enhances the instructional core.