1st Edition

Rethinking Teacher Professional Development Designing and Researching How Teachers Learn

By Donald Freeman Copyright 2024
    248 Pages 45 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This book presents a new set of ideas to challenge established thinking and to guide researching and designing teacher professional development. Grounded in the work of the Learning4Teaching Project which documented public-sector teachers’ experiences and learning from professional development in three countries, the volume presents a sociomaterial perspective on teacher sensemaking. This teacher-centered perspective disputes the "conventional calculus" in which teachers learn content that they apply in their classrooms. Part I outlines conventional issues in how teacher learning and professional development have been conceptualized and studied; Part II introduces a new group of concepts that rethink these assumptions; and Part III offers important insights to inform professional development across disciplines, cultures, and contexts.

    Written by a leading international teacher educator in an accessible style that incorporates visual representations and project data, the book will appeal to practitioners, scholars, and researchers who design and research how teachers learn in professional development.

    Introduction: The three meanings of Learning4Teaching PART ONE: Designing and researching teacher professional development Chapter 1. How conventional thinking has led to a ‘calculus” of teacher professional development Chapter 2. Knowing-into-doing: Mapping the organization of teacher professional development Chapter 3. How teacher learning became recognized as a form of learning Chapter 4. Researching teacher professional development: The assemblage, the social geography, and the shadows on the periphery PART TWO: Learning4Teaching PREAMBLE: The Learning4Teaching project and its ideas Chapter 5. Availability and access to professional development: How teacher participation is shaped Chapter 6. (mis)Alignment in professional development Chapter 7. Uptake, usefulness, and use: How professional development moves into teaching Chapter 8. Naming and learning content in professional development: The currency of social facts PART THREE: Rethinking: the Learning4Teaching argument Chapter 9. Learning4Teaching: Researching teacher professional learning at scale Chapter 10. Rethinking teacher professional development: The argument for Learning4Teaching

    Biography

    Donald Freeman is Professor of Education at the University of Michigan, with visiting appointments at Aston University and the University of Graz.