Conference Agenda

This paper proposes a meta-model of professional learning (PL) that attempts to synthesise the constructs, theories, and processes accounted for in published models to date. The paper builds upon two of the authors’ existing frameworks for designing (King, 2014; Poekert et al., 2020) and evaluating PL (King, 2014), whilst also drawing from the key constructs, theories, and processes of PL in the wider literature. The results advance a conceptual framework that aggregates empirical illustrations and practical tools to support the understanding and application of the constructs elaborated within the framework in both research and practice. It aims to serve as a diagram, as defined by Deleuze (1988, p. 44): “a diagram is a map, or rather a series of superimposed maps.” Such diagrams model the rhizomatic nature of experience.

By grounding the meta-model in pragmatism and complexity theory, it aims to address critiques that challenge scholars to highlight the epistemological, ontological, and ethical commitments that inform methodological decisions and approaches to PL (e.g., Boylan, 2021). Because the model is rooted in pragmatic complexity, it allows for flexibility in its application based upon the goal(s) that a user is trying to achieve. Previous taxonomies of professional learning (i.e., Kennedy, 2014) posit that these goals might range from the transmission of discrete skills or knowledge to the development of competencies to the transformation of professional identities. It stands to reason that as the goals of the professional learning activity vary, so will the constructs that must be accounted for in the design and evaluation of PL. Pragmatic complexity also allows for consideration of the emergence of different constructs operating within diverse contexts that can be understood and navigated through pragmatic inquiry, either during enactment or evaluation because both are understood to be experiments aimed at improving the situation under study toward an ethically grounded goal. The ultimate ethical goal of these efforts to improve teaching and learning is “equal participation by all in the conversation of humankind” because “initiation into this conversation is the purpose of education, and it is the purpose of educational research to provide tools to aid in this task” (Garrison, 1994, p. 13).

The model is also flexible enough to account for the complexity, nonlinearity, and nuance of individual experience situated within unique contexts as participants engage in PL activity while still highlighting patterns that emerge across individuals. This flexibility affords discretion to both the practitioner in the selection of tools and approaches and the researcher in the selection of methods and instruments that are fit for purpose. The model makes both theoretical and practical contributions by synthesising conceptualisations of PL to date and serving as a platform for future theoretical and programmatic development. Further, it is the ambitious goal of this framework to promote a meta-model that is simultaneously universal and deeply contextualised within and across national boundaries and circumstances because it can be configured and applied in a multiplicity of ways. By advancing a language that aims to be both accessible to researchers and practitioners alike and broadly applicable across nations, we aim to develop shared understandings across numerous audiences toward improving research and practice.

The paper directly responds to the theme advanced in the ECER call for papers in that it aims to represent the diverse influences in the lived experience of participants, schools and systems that affect how PL translates into teaching and learning outcomes. It also aims to offer a model that can be applied in diverse settings in the development, enactment, and evaluation of professional learning in order to optimise for equitable impacts on student learning outcomes.

Professional learning is vital for the development of educators and for the development of a strong educational system (Opfer & Pedder, 2011). This research project investigates the development of critical praxis (reflection and action for positive change) through a professional development program. Drawing on the work of Freire, and using the theory of practice architectures (Kemmis et al., 2014), the research considers the professional learning of English speaking teachers and school leaders involved in a long-term professional development program in Hong Kong.

In a previous article based on three research projects across two countries and three different education sectors (Francisco, Forssten Seiser & Grice 2021), we identified trust, power and agency as the key themes impacting on the development of critical praxis. We continue to explore these themes in this work. According to Aristotle, praxis is a morally committed action in which, and through which, values are given practical expression (Carr, 2009). Kemmis and Smith (2008) consider praxis as ‘what people do when they take into account all the circumstances and exigencies that confront them at a particular moment and then, taking the broadest view they can of what is best to do, they act’ (p. 4). Mahon et al. (2020) argue that educational praxis is forming, self-forming and transforming. It is forming in the sense that educators are involved in supporting the formation of people and of society (Kemmis et al. 2014). It is self-forming in that educators are reflexive and reflective in their praxis informed actions. It is transforming in that educators with a praxis informed approach will transform people and sites through their actions.

The research is framed and analysed using the theory of practice architectures (TPA). This theory identifies practice as “a socially established cooperative human activity involving utterances and forms of understandings (sayings), modes of action (doings), and ways in which people relate to one another and the world (relatings) that ‘hang together’ in characteristic ways in a distinctive ‘project’” (Mahon et al. 2017, p 7-8). Practices are enabled and constrained by site-based arrangements: the practice architectures.

The research discussed in this presentation explores how educators develop critical praxis (reflection and action for positive change) during formal professional learning experiences and in informal spaces, and the factors that enable and constrain its development. Specific research questions are: what practice architectures enabled and constrained the development critical praxis in a long-term professional learning program; and in what ways is the professional learning forming, self-forming and transforming?

As a result of the tertiarisation of teacher training in most Western countries, the issue of professional development has become part of a lifelong learning approach (Allen et al., 2018; European Commission, 2018, 2021). The continuing professional development policies that have been put in place have therefore tried to respond to this challenge, while adapting to national context. In the canton of Vaud in French-speaking Switzerland, in-service teacher development is essentially managed by the University of Teacher Education (Haute école pédagogique - HEP), the institution empowered to award teachers' diplomas.

For the past four years, the Directorate General of Public Education has mandated the University of Teacher Education of the canton (HEPVaud) to develop in-service teacher training aimed at meeting the major challenges in education. Among them, the inclusive school policy, which was the subject of an official document published by the Ministry of Education in 2019, under the title "Concept 360". Its aim was to provide a framework and guidelines on how schools and professionals should deal with student diversity. Our contribution shows how this policy was translated into in-service training and how it was articulated to the needs of education workers.