Professional Learning: Concepts, Models and Empirical Practice
November 24, 2015
Professional Development 42.1 is now published on-line.
Issue 1 of Volume 42 of the Association’s flagship journal is now available on-line.
Edited by Managing Editor, Professor Jim O’Brien of the University of Edinburgh, UK.
Jim’s Editorial is free to access at the moment online. The Editorial discusses the nature of articles received by the Editorial Board. Empirical studies have dominated for the past few years and while welcome and often worthy of publication, many are small-scale studies, which are largely confirmatory adding relatively little that is new to our knowledge and understanding. So that the field of study may grow and be under-pinned by sound theory, the Editorial Board would welcome more conceptual and themed articles. These might involve consideration of larger scale or longitudinal projects where these exist or review and synthesis articles to help clarify our thinking about the field of professional development and learning.
There is a mix of articles both empirical and conceptual in the latest Issue. The first article by Simon Clarke “investigates the paradoxical concept of ‘negative capability’ and its potential value for enhancing school leadership in circumstances of uncertainty, change and complexity.” Christine Forde and her Scottish colleagues analyse the revision and augmentation of Teacher Standards. Clive Dimmock re-visits the seminal work of Lawrence Stenhouse in bringing research and practice together in schools that are research-engaged professional learning communities. Elizabeth Labone and Janette Long’s article considers the nature of effective professional learning and focuses on 3 case study schools in New South Wales. Apparently, Jeffrey Carpenter’s article on ‘Edcamps’, is the first peer-reviewed article on this new phenomenon and has caused a stir on Twitter. Eline Vanassche and Geert Kelchtermans provide an account of a two-year collaborative self-study study of six experienced teacher educators in Flanders, Belgium before we move to the USA with Sandra Linder and colleagues’ article on PD for the early childhood workforce. Dorothy MacMillan and colleagues reflect on motivation and inhibiting factors related to teacher engagement with CPD in their article, and the Issue concludes with two short Research Reports one looking at teacher evaluation [appraisal] in California by Sharon Conley and colleagues, the other by Jennifer Kobrin examines learning progressions and formative assessment in mathematics.
All ipda members will receive their personal print copy of 42.1 by post over the next few weeks.
Make sure you renew your ipda membership for 2016 to secure your posted hard copy.
Posted by Professor Jim O’Brien, Managing Editor, Professional Development in Education
