Search results

The purpose of this study was to investigate the connection between professional development and professional capital within international schools in Asia.

This study was an exploratory multisite case study. Teachers and leaders in six high performing international schools in Asia were surveyed to measure their professional capital. Three leaders with the highest professional capital from different schools were interviewed to better understand how professional development fosters professional capital of their teachers.

International school leaders tended to have high professional capital while teachers reported having less professional capital. Leaders fostered professional capital of their teachers through professional development by supporting the intellectual passions of individuals, fostering collaborative learning within and across international schools and creating a culture of safety and vulnerability for teachers to try new things.

This study showed that a short version of the professional capital survey tested well in this context with items just focused on professional development. However, more work needs to be done to make the individual constructs more robust as it pertains to professional development. This research also highlighted the need to look at how international school teachers foster their own professional capital through professional development.

This is the first study that focused on the intersection of professional capital and professional development. Additionally, this article serves as one of the few studies of professional capital in international schools.

Situates current research on professional development within an organizational perspective. Offers a framework for the study of professional development, and proposes that key factors that affect student achievement be conceptualized as school capacity. Argues that increases in school capacity will lead to gains in student achievement, and that professional development should, therefore, be designed to enhance the following three dimensions of capacity. First, school capacity includes the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of individual staff members. Second, the diverse human and technical resources of a school need to be put to use in an organized, collective enterprise termed school professional community. Finally, a school’s capacity is enhanced when its programs for student and staff learning are coherent, focused, and sustained. To illustrate comprehensive professional development that addresses all aspects of school capacity, describes one school from a current study.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a model for holistic professional development as an alternative to practices that have been piecemeal and curriculum focused ignoring, in particular, the critical dimension of management development.

A conceptual framework for considering professional development needs is provided in the form of an holistic model. The model, with its meshed infrastructure of appropriate educational leadership, performance management and strategic management suggests that four essential dimensions – curriculum, management, school and personal development – can be adapted as a basis for planning and evaluating a school's professional development programme.

Leaders at both system and school level should be interested in the insights provided and challenged to think differently about current practice and the implications for strategic management when the active management of professional development is made a priority.

The paper fulfils a need to provide educational managers with conceptual tools for planning and evaluating professional development programmes.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the issue of professional development education for school board members. The research question that guides this mixed study is: does school board member professional development have an effect on student achievement?

The standardized protocol for this study was to send a developed questionnaire to 50 directors of state school board associations. An inductive analysis was made of the state school board directors' responses on whether they felt professional development had a positive effect on student achievement. Their responses were then compared with Education Week's 2009 rating of state education systems.

From the response from the 26 responding state directors, the study found that most states do not require professional development for school board members. State board directors did feel that school board professional development had a positive effect on student achievement. Of the states that did require school board professional development, they received an overall rating of B or C according to the Education Week 2009 rating, while those states that did not require professional development received a rating of C or D.

Mixed research such as this adds to the conversation of the need for required school board professional development but the findings need to be re‐analyzed with all 50 states responding.

The practical implications are profound in that it is desired that children should succeed and learn in quality schools. School board members' lack of education (i.e. they only require high‐school diploma or GED) has an effect on student achievement. School board members need to take required professional development in all areas of public schooling so that quality decisions can be made for children's education.

The social implications are that school board member professional development sends a message to students that continued adult learning is necessary in all walks of life for the USA to continue its leadership in the world.

School board members with the barest qualifications are elected to, in essence, run public schools. Little research has been done about the effects of school board member education on student achievement. This paper explores the voices of state directors in relation to professional development for school board members in US public school discourse and fills some of the gaps in the research.

In Germany up until now, there has been very little research on staff development in schools. The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively assess school-based staff development and to describe the interplay between different instruments of staff development (e.g. classroom observations, development discussions) at the school level.

Considering that different constellations of organizational management tools may be differentially effective in different contexts (see Mintzberg, 1983/1992), an approach that takes a combination of different staff development instruments into account was chosen. Data were gathered from principals of primary and secondary schools in two federal states of Germany. Using regression, cluster analysis, and analysis of variance, the authors examined different instruments and patterns of staff development used in everyday school practice and determined how these affected the professional development of teachers.

Five staff development patterns could be identified. With regard to the extent of professional development activities of teachers, these patterns have been proven to have a different impact. Furthermore, the use of the different staff development patterns seems to be heavily dependent on the type of school.

Further research would be needed that examines if the three most relevant staff development patterns identified in this study can also be proven to be effective with regard to somewhat “harder” criteria than the extent of professional development activities of teachers. Such criteria could be teachers’ teaching skills or even student achievement.

The current study is the first to examine staff development in German schools systematically. The results provide some good leads for further studies in this area.

School superintendents are in search of development opportunities that can help them enhance their leadership capacity in order to respond to new demands and changes in the environment. This paper focuses on the professional development behaviors of school superintendents identified through a comparative study of two groups. One group participated in a Diagnostic Executive Competency Assessment System (DECAS) and the second group did not have any assessment experience. Findings suggest that both groups of school superintendents tend to engage in development experiences and activities. While there are some differences in the development behaviors of these two groups, it is interesting that all school superintendents recognize improvement (of self, schools, and student achievement) as a motivation to enhance their capacity in several ways.

Global focus on reforming teachers has resulted in the inclusion of multiple survey questions about teachers’ professional learning activities in large-scale international studies. A cross-national analysis of these survey data will likely enhance our understanding and inform the future direction regarding teacher professional development policy and practice. Yet we do not know whether these surveys measure the key features and their contextual factors of teachers’ professional learning activities to allow a systematic cross-national analysis. Based on international and U.S. literature, I develop a conceptual model of teachers’ professional learning activities in global context and analyze relevant survey items used in three major international studies – TIMSS, PIRLS, and TALIS. I conclude the chapter with a discussion of the coverage of these survey items and a direction for improving data collections of teachers’ professional learning activities in large-scale international studies.

Professional development schools (PDSs) are a specific type of school–university partnership designed to support teacher preparation, professional development, inquiry and research, and student learning. Active teacher engagement in PDS work over the past three decades has led to the emergence of teacher leader practice and development as a serendipitous outcome of PDS partnerships. Emphasizing teacher leadership throughout, this chapter provides an overview of PDSs, including a definition and core purposes, benefits of continuous learning for all PDS stakeholders, and the complexities of PDS work before offering a brief history of PDS in the United States.

A review of publications in teaching and teacher education over 10 years (2000–2010) on teacher professional development is the subject of this chapter. The first part synthesises production referred to learning, facilitation and collaboration, factors influencing professional development, effectiveness of professional development and issues around the themes. The second part selects from the production nine articles for closer examination. The chapter concludes by noting how the production brings out the complexities of teacher professional learning and how research and development have taken cognizance of these factors and provided food for optimism about their effects, although not yet about their sustainability in time.

Professional development aims to impact upon teacher knowledge, teacher practice and thus change student outcomes. Some of the most effective examples of professional development have focussed on active involvement of staff and administration in the process and have been extensive and progressive in nature. In this paper, we report on the implementation of a model of professional development in which school reculturing, collaboration between teaching professionals and opportunities for individual teacher learning are core themes. This study, undertaken at a disadvantaged primary school in Queensland, Australia, was a collaborative effort between the school and a university. The case study data were collected within the context of a larger research project. Analysis of the data, collected from focus group interviews with 11 teachers at the school and reflective notes taken from the second author’s research journal, revealed four major themes which focus on reflections of the process of professional development: individual focus areas chosen by the teachers; positives about the process; areas for improvement; and ideas for sustaining the professional collaboration. In conclusion, this study has shown that professional development undertaken in a climate of school reculturing and collaboration enhances a teacher’s sense of ownership and relevance of the in‐service.