Abstract
When learning is at the centre of the teaching enterprise, we would assume that the continuing professional development of teachers would be a priority of both education systems and teachers alike. Teachers like other professionals need to update their skill and knowledge base—in the case of teachers their pedagogical skills and content knowledge. In this chapter, I use three metaphors to describe current approaches to the continuing professional development of teachers: retooling, remodelling and revitalising. I add a fourth one—reimagining—to indicate the need for teachers themselves to have some agency in identifying priorities and needs for their own professional learning. My argument is that continuing professional development needs to incorporate all four of the elements of retooling, remodelling, revitalising and reimagining to have two interrelated effects: first to ensure that the goal of improving student learning is achieved and second that a strong and autonomous teaching profession is supported.
A version of this chapter was presented as a keynote address at the ICSEI conference in Slovenia 3–6 January 2007.
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Notes
- 1.
This is a network of teachers which was established in 1999 in the Faculty of Education at the University of Sydney. Members of the Coalition go about their work examining their practices and investigating new possibilities (Groundwater-Smith and Mockler 2009).
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Sachs, J. (2011). Skilling or Emancipating? Metaphors for Continuing Teacher Professional Development. In: Mockler, N., Sachs, J. (eds) Rethinking Educational Practice Through Reflexive Inquiry. Professional Learning and Development in Schools and Higher Education, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0805-1_11
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