Conference Agenda

Innovation in Teacher Professional Learning in Europe Research, Policy and Practice is a book due to be published by Routledge in 2023, providing an overview of teacher professional learning and development in 14 European countries. The authors participating in this symposium will provide an insight into current policy and practice relating to PLD in their countries. Taken together, the three symposia in this series will enable an up-to-date commentary on the state of PLD in Europe.

During recent decades we can track a path going from teacher education as In-service training (INSET) to Continuing Professional Development (CPD) to Professional Learning and Development (Ostinelli and Crescentini, 2021). The first is usually conceived as an occasional complement to initial teacher education; the second is a continuing process typified by transmissive approaches (Timperley, 2011); the third, finally, includes learning under the form of evolutionary processes capable of generating professional expertise and mastery (Dreyfus and Dreyfuss, 2008), focusing on the teacher as an individual professional but forming part of a network of professional learners capable of providing adequate answers to the rapid and sudden changes affecting contemporary schooling.

Teacher professional learning in every country analysed here has been classified as pertaining to one or other of these categories. However, each school system also has its particularities, both in defining its approach to teacher professional learning and from a cultural/structural point of view. Moreover, the countries participating in this study are also different in terms of population, going from small nations like Wales to larger ones such as France or Italy.

The information here proposed can give a good background for future deepening and more precise studies on various issues concerning teacher professional learning. Questions of relevance for all the countries include the increasing prominence of informal professional learning, the incentives for participating in teacher professional development, (including leadership development (Jones 2022) and how these may be aligned with needs, conditions and resources, and the issue of compulsoriness, in particular, the balance between prescription and option. Coaching (Kise, 2017), mentoring (Geeraerts et al., 2015) and professional learning networks (Handscomb and Brown, 2022) are associated practices that also deserve attention. Another important issue is how to balance and integrate in a lifewide-oriented organized approach what is performed autonomously and informally by teachers as professionals who take responsibility for their own learning.

The critical inquiry proposed here was intended as an exploration of how conceptualizations of learning, responsibility and change have been articulated through the pandemic crisis. Issues framing teachers’ professional learning and development, along with the dynamics of roles and architectures of temporality shaping the meaning-making and the policy-making processes, were rendered visible. In discussing their normative implications for teachers’ professional learning and development (PLD), I proposed taking a more complex view (Strom, Mills and Abrams, 2021) of the multiplicity of co-evolving conditions and factors explaining the dynamics of change during crisis (Rikowski, 2020; Sayed et al., 2021). This meant looking for historical, systemic, structural, political and cultural connections with the context of continuing professional development in Romania. A number of 66 policy documents and policy statements issued by government actors, NGOs, experts (local members of the academic or non-academic community), stakeholders (professional bodies, trade unions, etc.) and market actors have been sampled for analysis. Analytically, positions theory (Davies & Harré, 1990) and critical frame analysis (hereafter, CFA) (Dombos et al, 2012) have been employed to look at how issues of teachers’ professional learning and development have been articulated in the education policy debates in Romania between March 2020 and June 2021. The analysis resulted in unpacking conceptual and processual factors constraining innovative approaches to teachers’ PLD that the pandemic crisis might have harboured. Some of these constraints have systemic and structural roots. Others are epistemic and could remain concealed, should the inquiry abide by linear models of framing the research design, as Kennedy (2016) warns. The greater risk associated with linear approaches to conceptualizing learning, responsibility and change through crisis, rests with hindering the ethical and political responsibilities conjoined with innovating teachers’ PLD. The pandemic crisis has provided great opportunities to see that innovating the teachers’ professional learning is not only about asking what or how, but also by whom and towards which horizon of possibilities. These questions demand that we recognize the complex multitude of factors and agencies cutting into post-pandemic innovative approaches to PLD, and that we place this recognition more in service of developing solidarity and socially just educational practices, than in serving neoliberal agendas of performativity, progress and competitiveness.

Davies, B., & Harré, R. (1990). Positioning: The discursive production of selves. Journal for the theory of social behaviour, 20(1), 43-63. Dombos T, Krizsan A, Verloo M, Zentai V (2012) Critical Frame Analysis: A Comparative Methodology for the QUING Project. Working Paper Series, Center for Policy Studies. Central European University. Hungary: Budapest. http://pdc.ceu.hu/archive/00006845/01/cps-working-paper-critical-frame-analysis-quing-2012.pdf [downloaded April 2020] Kennedy, M.M. (2016) How does professional development improve teaching?, Review of Educational Research, 20 (10), pp. 1-36. DOI: 10.3102/0034654315626800 Rikowski, G (2020). Crisis: critical reflections on the language of neoliberalism in education. Routledge. Strom, K., Mills, T. and Abrams, L (2021) Illuminating a continuum of complex perspectives in teacher development, Professional Development in Education, 47 (2-3), pp.199-208, DOI: 10.1080/19415257.2021.1901005 Sayed, Yusuf, Cooper, Adam, & John, Vaughn M.. (2021). Crises and disruptions: Educational reflections, (re)imaginings, and (re)vitalization. Journal of Education (University of KwaZulu-Natal), (84), pp. 9-30. https://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i84a01

This paper analyses policy and practice related to teachers’ professional learning (PL) in the Republic of Ireland (RoI). Like other European contexts, Ireland developed a national framework (called Cosán = pathway) for teachers’ PL. The Teaching Council of Ireland (2016) developed Cosán in consultation with teachers and other key stakeholders. While the framework acknowledges the importance of teachers as learners (Evans, 2014) and highlights the centrality of PL in teacher professionalism (Kennedy, 2014), it was also initially linked to teacher registration with the Teaching Council as is the case with the professional update in Scotland (General Teaching Council Scotland, 2014). Only teachers registered with the Teaching Council can teach in state-recognised schools. However, the idea of mandatory engagement with PL for registration was met with resistance. While the Teaching Council argues teachers have a responsibility to engage in PL , they are questioning the value of making PL mandatory. As highlighted by the OECD (2009) there is a fine line between professional responsibility and accountability with the latter being perceived as managerialism. This paper will explore the policy context and rationale for the development of Cosán before tracing its journey through the consultative process with teachers which was a unique approach in the context of the Irish policy landscape. Challenges to enactment (Bell and Stevenson, 2015) will also be explored including the socio-political environment of teacher PL, governance and strategic direction, mandatory PL , and developing a strategic approach to teachers’ PL across all education stakeholders. Finally, this chapter will propose a way forward for the enactment of Cosán emphasising the importance of a common understanding of PL, contexts and considerations for PL, and leadership for PL at the macro, meso and micro levels of the system.

Evans, L. (2014). Leadership for professional development and learning: enhancing our understanding of how teachers develop. Cambridge Journal of Education, 44(2),179-198 General Teaching Council for Scotland (2014). Professional update. Available at: https://www.gtcs.org.uk/professional-update/professional-update.aspx# Last accessed (4, May 2021). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2009). Creating Effective Teaching and Learning Environments: First Results from TALIS. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/berlin/43541636.pdf. Last accessed (4, May 2021). Kennedy, A. (2014). Models of Continuing Professional Development: a framework for analysis. Professional Development in Education, 40(3), 336-351 King, F., and Holland, E. (2022) A transformative professional learning meta-model to support leadership learning and growth of early career teachers. International Journal of Leadership in Education, DOI: 10.1080/13603124.2022.2037021 Teaching Council (2016b). Cosán: Framework for Teachers’ Learning. Maynooth, Ireland: Teaching Council. Teaching Council (2018). Common Ground in a Crowded Space. Maynooth, Ireland: Teaching Council.

In France, teachers’ continuing in-service education, as currently designated (formation continue in French) has been the subject of numerous national and international studies, research and reports which regularly and consistently highlight its deficits (Cour des Comptes, 2017; IGEN, 2017). A long-standing top-down conception of in-service teacher training is part of a uniform vision of the educational system that has long neglected a genuine diagnosis of needs and an engineering approach that would enable the implementation of training activities that are well thought out and geared to specific educational contexts. In accordance with our previously published article (Malet, 2021 & 2023; Ostinelli and Crescentini, 2021) France shows a centralistic influence that contributes the use of innovative forms of PL testifies to the fact that some innovation at least starts to appear in the system. Yet, a programmatic reorientation of in-service training policy from the perspective of steering training activities centred on the professional development of teachers is underway in France. It is inspired, often explicitly, by foreign examples of the promotion of an human resource management policy governed by the concept of CPD for teachers. It is driven by a concern to implement a genuine human resources management policy, which is lacking in the French education system, and which is likely to increase the attractiveness of the teaching profession and the prospects for career and professional mobility in the course of employment, and to restore the image of the profession and the motivation of serving staff and their commitment to a lifelong learning approach.

Cour des comptes (2017). Gérer les enseignants autrement : une réforme qui reste à faire. Paris : Ministère de l’Education Nationale. IGEN – IGAENR (General Inspection of the French Department of Education) (2017). Rapport n° 2017-037, L’évaluation sur la politique publique de formation continue du premier degré, June 2017. Malet R. (ed.) (2021). De la formation continue au développement professionnel des personnels d’éducation. Situation nationale, comparaisons internationales, état des recherches. Paris : Conseil National d’Evaluation des Systèmes Scolaires (CNESCO). Malet R. (forthcoming). Teachers’ Continuing professional Development in France. A Systemic Transformation in Progress. In Ken Jones, Giorgio Ostinelli, Alberto Crescentini (Eds). Innovation in Teacher Professional Learning: Research, Policy.and Practice in Europe. Routledge. Ostinelli G., Crescentini A. (2021). Policy, culture and practice in teacher professional development in five European countries. A comparative analysis, Professional Development in Education, 1-17.

The current debate on how a national or local institution can implement teacher professional learning (PL) and development has resulted in significant shifts in the conceptualization, design, and delivery of continuing professional development (CPD) programs. Despite the specific policies and models adopted at the national or school level, CPD is one of the critical issues of the European Education Area (EEA) strategic framework (Council Resolution 2021/C 66/01). The EEA framework gives a platform of shared European initiatives, which underlie the need to promote CPD opportunities for a good quality of teaching and learning. Teachers’ professional quality directly impacts the educational outcomes of all students; consequently, there is a relevant demand for continuous development. Given the complexity of this policy and research scenario, we can assume that a CPD plan, at the school or system level, can help in understanding how students’ educational outcomes relate with teachers’ PL (Earle & Bianchi, 2021). CPD is not the current label for teacher PL in Italy, where it is called “continuing teacher education” (CTE). The CTE is implemented through a three-year national plan that combines school and teachers’ needs with national priorities (MIUR, 2016; 2017). It represents a) an educational policy challenge - one of the weakest points of the educational system - (Foschi, 2021); b) a teachers’ need, and a spending priority of significant weight (OECD, 2019). The proposal’s primary focus is to figure out which indicators, literature-based categories, and criteria of professional learning were considered during the design, implementation, and evaluation of teacher PL in Italy. If country adopts the concept of PL, it is necessary to examine those policies, organizational models, and practices which have put teachers’ learning needs at the core of school improvement (Korthagen, 2017; Cirkony et al., 2021). The national CTE model could fail if poorly informed by current literature on teacher education and professional development (Kennedy, 2019). For that reason, the paper suggests a set of literature-based indicators that could help in understanding the Italian CTE policy at a large-scale policy level and at local professional development initiatives: how much time is needed to foster teachers’ professional changes? How to learn about teachers’ learning? How to design studies and CPD policies to promote teachers’ PL? How can we provide guidance to improve teachers’ practice and enrich their thinking about teaching? How to understand the changes in student learning due to teachers’ participation in CPD activities?

Cirkony, C., Rickinson, M., Walsh, L., Gleeson, J., Salisbury, M., Cutler, B., Berry, M. & Smith, K. (2021). Beyond effective approaches: A rapid review response to designing professional learning. Professional Development in Education, DOI: 10.1080/19415257.2021.1973075. Council Resolution on a strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training towards the European Education Area and beyond (2021-2030) 2021/C 66/01. (2021). Official Journal, C 66, 1-21. Earle, S. & Bianchi, L. (2021). What role can professional learning frameworks play in developing teacher agency in subject leadership in primary science? Professional Development in Education, DOI: 10.1080/19415257.2021.1942142. Foschi, L. C., (2021). Teachers’ Continuous Professional Development in Italy: An analysis of the results of the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS). Italian Journal of Educational Research, 27, 52-64. Korthagen, F. (2017). Inconvenient truths about teacher learning: Towards professional development 3.0. Teachers and Teaching, 23 (4), 387–405. Kennedy, M.M. (2019). How we learn about teacher learning. Review of Research in Education, 43(1), 138–162. MIUR (2016). Piano per la formazione dei docenti, 2016-19. Roma: MIUR. MIUR (2017). Orientamenti concernenti il Piano Triennale dell’Offerta Formativa. Roma: MIUR. OECD (2019). TALIS 2018 Results (Volume I): Teachers and School Leaders as Lifelong Learners. TALIS. Paris: OECD Publishing.