Computer science teacher professional development and professional learning communities: a review of the research literature

В статье поднимается проблема управления профессиональным развитием учителя в России и в Сингапуре; освещается опыт непрерывного повышения квалификации педагога в Сингапуре посредством создания профессиональных обучающихся сообществ; раскрываются особенности организации работы сингапурских профессиональных обучающихся сообществ в школах, принципы их функционирования. В сравнительном ключе актуализируются вопросы развития профессионализма педагога в России, опыт региональных практик повышении квалификации педагогов, неформального объединения педагогов, инновационных практик дополнительного профессионального образования. В итоге сравнительного анализа делается вывод о том, что опыт Сингапура по созданию и развитию системы непрерывного повышения профессионализма учителя через профессиональные обучающиеся сообщества может заслуживать более пристального внимания со стороны, как учёных-теоретиков, так и учителей-практиков и управленцев школ в России. The article touches upon the issue of management of teacher professional development in Russia and Singapore. The author refers to the experience of organization of teacher continual professional development through professional learning communities in Singaporean schools as one of the most effective in the world. The paper provides insight into their work organization and principles of operation, as well as describes the history of their development. The phases of teachers’ participation in professional learning communities in Singaporean schools are viewed within the present studies. Concurrently, the issues of teacher professional development in Russia, the emerging experience of teacher qualifications upgrading in regional practices and informal teacher communities, innovative practices of teacher complementary professional education are updated in a comparative manner. The author reveals some difficulties and achievements in this area. In the end of the comparative analysis it is stated that the experience achieved by Singapore in creating a highly effective system of teacher professional learning communities needs a more focused attention from academics, as well as from practicing teachers and school managers.

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Union Contracts and Teacher Professional Development

Education Policy Analysis Archives ◽

10.14507/epaa.v9n26.2001 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 9 ◽

pp. 26

Author(s):

Paul V. Bredeson

Keyword(s):

Professional Development ◽

Professional Learning Communities ◽

Learning Communities ◽

Teacher Professional Development ◽

Professional Learning ◽

Professional Growth ◽

Interview Data ◽

Teacher Union ◽

Teacher Professional ◽

The Impact

In this article, I report the results of an investigation that examined the impact of teacher union contracts on the development of professional learning communities in schools. There are three primary sources of data used in the study: 1) 100 written teacher union contract documents; 2) structured interview data from 21 educators (school superintendents, principals, directors of staff development, and teacher union representatives; and 3) focus group interview data from educational leaders in schools. The analysis and discussion focus on five areas related to teacher professional development with implications for policy and practice: explicit language covering opportunities for teaching learning in their work; governance and decision making structures, that is, specific provisions covering wages, hours, and conditions of employment; the description of legitimate and sponsored activities for the professional development of teachers; and the resources supporting the on-going professional growth of teachers. The findings indicate that rethinking, restructuring, and organizational re-culturing in schools are initial expressions of a new unionism that has the potential to lead to the development of more powerful professional learning communities in schools.

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“Critical Friendship” and Sustainable Change

Disrupting Pedagogies in the Knowledge Society ◽

10.4018/978-1-61350-495-6.ch003 ◽

2011 ◽

pp. 32-45

Author(s):

Susan R. Adams ◽

Ross Peterson-Veatch

Keyword(s):

Professional Development ◽

Professional Learning Communities ◽

Learning Communities ◽

Teacher Professional Development ◽

Professional Learning ◽

Theory And Practice ◽

Sustainable Change ◽

Central Focus ◽

Institutional Contexts ◽

Teacher Professional

The central focus of this chapter will be to describe the theory and practice of critical friendship in teacher professional development, paying special attention to the ways in which participants in small professional learning communities (PLCs) create spaces in which to experience discomfort together for the purpose of sustaining their own transformation as practitioners. Using protocols (prescribed turn-taking mechanisms) as social processes to negotiate and then arrive at explicitly named norms and agreements, PLCs that use critical friendship as their goal aim to create the conditions for personal and communal transformation of both their members and their institutional contexts.

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