Conference Agenda

Teachers’ professional learning can be organized both formally, for example by external agents and informally between colleagues (Jansen in de Wal et al., 2020). A learning study, as in the current study, exemplifies collegial learning that is formal in that it is based on a specific theory, the Variation theory. Variation theory is briefly about how a phenomenon can be experienced in different ways and how these different understandings can be identified by teachers and used in teaching (Wood & Andrew, 2022). Collegial learning can take place within many frameworks and with different methods, and it is important that we gather knowledge about what different forms can contribute (Solis & Gordon, 2020). Developing within the profession is a necessity to achieve high quality teaching in different school types and in different school cultures (Jansen in de Wal et al., 2020). Teachers' collegial learning needs to constantly develop regardless of external circumstances and thus continued research in the area is a common international concern.

Previous research shows that teachers' motivation for continued learning is an important factor for students' development (Jansen in de Wal et al., 2020), and therefore principals need to strive for a school culture that promotes collegial learning and teachers’ participation in decision-making to motivate their learning (Gülsen & Çelik, 2021). A systematic literature review (Cong-Lem, 2021) also shows the importance of school culture that enables collegial learning and collaboration to influence teachers' individual development and agency. Haataja and Salonen (2025) highlight the socio-emotional aspects of collegial learning by filming teachers' eye contact during co-teaching in mathematics. They argue that short glances during the lesson, mainly in connection with emotional triggers, indicate the need for time for further interaction outside the classroom. Being able to have in-depth conversations with colleagues promotes learning (Blatti et al., 2019). Several different approaches in professional learning involve colleagues visiting each other's classes, which makes teachers vulnerable and therefore must be built on collaboration and a culture of trust (Mather & Visone, 2024a, b). The emotional work between colleagues is studied by Parks and McKay (2022) in a qualitative case study from a staff room which indicates that positive relationships are needed to promote collegial support. The emotional and teachers' sense of trust is also expressed as fundamental when examining collegial learning through a reflective inquiry process within various collegial learning frameworks. Shared reflection among teachers on approaches and possible changes in teaching practice is based on collegial support (Solis & Gordon, 2020). In addition to trust and relationships, prerequisites for collegial learning are mentioned such as time, resources, quality of collaboration, teacher autonomy and guidance (Schipper et al., 2020). Visone (2020) highlights in his study the importance of preparing for collegial learning through lesson visits. For example, by being clear about the purpose of the visit, negative thoughts about being evaluated can be counteracted.

The purpose of the present study is to increase knowledge about collegial learning. The research questions are

• What characterizes the phenomenon of collegial learning?
• How are those involved in collegial learning affected?
• What function does theory have in collegial learning?

Although this study uses empirical material created from a phenomenographic and variation theory framework, the study of collegial learning is conducted from the perspective of phenomenology and lifeworld theory. The lifeworld is the way people relate to and interact with the world around them. Lifeworld theory is used to focus on each participant's lived experiences of the phenomenon of collegial learning and thereby gain an understanding of what does not vary but characterizes the phenomenon.

In this study we examine the outcomes and products resulting from teachers’ day-to-day adjustments of their teaching and ask whether these can be understood as an essential aspect of teacher professional development (TPD).

Teacher professional development may be considered on a continuum ranging from highly explicit and organized to implicit and informal, including incidental and even “unconscious” elements (Evans, 2019). During the past two decades, teachers’ informal workplace learning has received increasing attention and is now widely acknowledged as an important and ubiquitous aspect of TPD (Hodkinson & Hodkinson, 2005; Ingvarson, 2003; Kyndt et al., 2016).

In the literature, teachers’ day-to-day classroom experience and experimentation are recurring as sources of workplace learning. Clarke and Hollingsworth (2002) included ”professional experimentation” as one of four components in their interconnected model of teacher professional growth. Moreover, they showed that this component was central in most sustained so-called “growth networks”, suggesting an extended cycle of enactment and reflection preceding any change in beliefs. Pedder (2007), using factor analysis, identified experimentation, reflection, and self-evaluation (Factor: “critical and responsive learning”) as one of four dimensions of teachers’ learning practices. Similarly, in a systematic review of research on teachers’ everyday professional development, Kyndt et al. (2016) found that most informal learning activities discussed in the literature were closely connected to classroom activity (p. 1122, Table 2). Taken together, the literature shows that teachers learn from their classroom practice through, for example, direct experience, trial and error, experimentation, and the implementation of materials and ideas from colleagues (cf. Kyndt et al., 2016).

To the extent that these continuous adjustments to practice have been analyzed, they have primarily been treated as processual factors—such as experimentation or trial and error—that influence teacher workplace learning. The actual changes in practice brought about through these processes have therefore largely been overlooked, as research has tended to prioritize learning as the main outcome of interest. This is the case even in studies that explicitly conceptualize TPD and professional learning as sustained inquiry into one’s own day-to-day practice (e.g., Ambler, 2016; Milton & Morgan, 2023; Salo et al., 2024). Yet it is entirely possible to imagine that an inquiry process may lead to outcomes whose value extends far beyond what the individuals conducting the inquiry learn—for example, within a research group. Indeed, in many contexts, the value of the results of an inquiry process is largely disconnected from individual or group learning as such. In this presentation, we argue that there may be significant gains in also paying attention to the concrete outcomes, or products, of teachers’ day-to-day inquiry into their practice. Our purpose is to explore whether teachers’ day-to-day adjustments of their practice result in interesting and potentially fruitful outcomes and products, and how these can be characterized. The research questions guiding the study are:

1. What different types of adjustments do teachers make in their classrooms?
2. Why do they make these adjustments?

Taken together, the answers to these questions provide an initial characterization of teachers’ day-to-day adjustments as constituting concrete outcomes (e.g., a new way of teaching about supply and demand) and products (e.g., a new scaffold for writing letters). As such, it constitutes a basis for discussing the potential significance of this type of continuous adjustments for teacher professional development and school development more broadly.

This paper presents findings from a Doctor of Education (Ed. D.) study conducted at Maynooth University. The study examines guidance counselling and school counseling roles within contemporary education systems and explores how professional agency is exercised through engagement with policy and professional frameworks in Ireland and the United States.

Guidance counsellors in Ireland and school counselors in the United States occupy complex professional roles encompassing educational, career and social and personal guidance within whole school contexts at post-primary level. In Ireland these roles are shaped primarily through Department of Education and Youth policy articulated through Circular 0001/2025 and Information Note 0001/2024 and is supported by the strategic direction of the National Strategic Framework for Lifelong Guidance 2024 - 2030. In the United States school counseling practice is guided through professional standards articulated by the American School Counselor Association, most notably The ASCA National Model: A Framework for School Counseling Programs, as opposed to statutory national policy. Although operating within distinct governance arrangements, both contexts delineate normative expectations that shape role scope, programme enactment, and professional learning for guidance professionals working in post-primary school settings.

Existing research has largely examined policy frameworks, professional standards, and professional learning structures as discrete and analytically separate domains. Comparatively little attention has been paid to how guidance professionals interpret these frameworks in relation to their professional role, or to the ways in which professional agency is exercised in the enactment of role expectations in practice. This omission is consequential, given that guidance counselling constitutes a form of relational and contextually situated professional work, shaped through the interaction of school level contexts, systemic structures, and professional judgement, as theorised within policy enactment scholarship (Ball, Maguire and Braun 2012).

Drawing on a completed sequential explanatory mixed methods design this paper explores the interplay between policy and professional framework’s role expectations and professional agency. The study investigates how role expectations are articulated how they are reflected in professional learning experiences and how guidance counsellors and school counselors interpret and enact their role within diverse institutional contexts.

The central research question guiding this paper is:

How do guidance counsellors in Ireland and school counselors in the United States navigate the interplay between policy and professional frameworks, professional agency, and role enactment within their practice?

The analysis is informed by Ball’s theory of policy enactment which conceptualises policy as an interpretive process shaped by situated professional material and external contexts (Ball, Maguire and Braun, 2012). Kennedy’s framework for continuing professional development provides a complementary lens enabling examination of how professional learning structures align with role expectations and support professional agency reflection and sustained practice (Kennedy, 2014).

Through a comparative perspective this paper contributes to European and international discussions on guidance roles professional learning and practitioner agency. Rather than evaluating the effectiveness of specific frameworks the paper foregrounds practitioner interpretation and sense making within guidance counselling and school counseling practice across two education systems.

Finland is a bilingual country with two official languages, Finnish and Swedish. Due to this, there are two paralell school-systems in each language. In Swedish-medium schools in Finland, bilingual students partake in the native-level Finnish (NaFi) syllabus. National evaluations regarding the learning outcomes in Finnish as the second national language, clearly show a need for developing the teaching of bilingual students in different educational stages (Nummela & Westerholm, 2020). The aim of the study is to explore how one native-level Finnish language teacher's language didactic knowledge is developed within the context of a language didactic development project.

The research questions are:

1. How do professional development practices and everyday learning practices affect the teacher's professional learning journey?

2. What is it that constrains and enables a teacher's didactic choices when she is part of a professional development context?

We use the theory of practice architectures (Kemmis et. al, 2014) and the theoretical framework developed by Salo et al. (2024) as a theoretical and analytical lens. The framework by Salo et al. (2024) deepens the understanding of professional learning both within and for practice. It conceptualizes professional learning as comprising three interconnected dimensions: everyday learning (EL), professional development (PD), and professional learning (PL).