Professional development

About: Professional development is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 81108 publications have been published within this topic receiving 1316681 citations.

Non-formal learning and tacit knowledge in professional work

Abstract: Background. This paper explores the conceptual and methodological problems arising from several empirical investigations of professional education and learning in the workplace. Aims. 1. To clarify the multiple meanings accorded to terms such as ‘ non-formal learning’, ‘ implicit learning’ and ‘ tacit knowledge’, their theoretical assumptions and the range of phenomena to which they refer. 2. To discuss their implications for professional practice. Method. A largely theoretical analysis of issues and phenomena arising from empirical investigations. Analysis. The author's typology of non-formal learning distinguishes between implicit learning, reactive on-the-spot learning and deliberative learning. The significance of the last is commonly overemphasised. The problematic nature of tacit knowledge is discussed with respect to both detecting it and representing it. Three types of tacit knowledge are discussed: tacit understanding of people and situations, routinised actions and the tacit rules that underpin intuitive decision-making. They come together when professional performance involves sequences of routinised action punctuated by rapid intuitive decisions based on tacit understanding of the situation. Four types of process are involved-reading the situation, making decisions, overt activity and metacognition-and three modes of cognition-intuitive, analytic and deliberative. The balance between these modes depends on time, experience and complexity. Where rapid action dominates, periods of deliberation are needed to maintain critical control. Finally the role of both formal and informal social knowledge is discussed; and it is argued that situated learning often leads not to local conformity but to greater individual variation as people's careers take them through a series of different contexts. This abstract necessarily simplifies a more complex analysis in the paper itself. (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1348/000709900158001/abstract)

Enhancing school-based prevention and youth development through coordinated social, emotional, and academic learning.

Abstract: A comprehensive mission for schools is to educate students to be knowledgeable, responsible, socially skilled, healthy, caring, and contributing citizens. This mission is supported by the growing number of school-based prevention and youth development programs. Yet, the current impact of these programs is limited because of insufficient coordination with other components of school operations and inattention to implementation and evaluation factors necessary for strong program impact and sustainability. Widespread implementation of beneficial prevention programming requires further development of research-based, comprehensive school reform models that improve social, health, and academic outcomes; educational policies that demand accountability for fostering children's full development; professional development that prepares and supports educators to implement programs effectively; and systematic monitoring and evaluation to guide school improvement.

Professional learning in the learning profession: A status report on teacher development in the United States and abroad.

Abstract: No part of this may be reproduced in any form — except for brief quotation (not to exceed 1,000 words) in a review or professional work — without prior written permission from NSDC or the authors. D ecades of standards-based school reform have helped identify what students need to know and be able to do. In the words of former IBM CEO Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., these efforts were meant to " drive standards [and accountability] through the schoolhouse door. " But educators and policymakers are recognizing that it is time for Standards-Based Reform 2.0. We need to place a greater priority on strengthening the capacity of educators and building learning communities to deliver higher standards for every child. Enabling educational systems to achieve on a wide scale the kind of teaching that has a substantial impact on student learning requires much more intensive and effective professional learning than has traditionally been available. If we want all young people to possess the higher-order thinking skills they need to succeed in the 21st century, we need educators who possess higher-order teaching skills and deep content knowledge. There are many ways to improve the quality and performance of the nation's education workforce, and many are being tested. States and districts have restructured the staffs at thousands of failing schools. They are seeking to lure better talent into classrooms by recruiting career changers and liberal-arts graduates with rich content knowledge and a willingness to teach. They are revamping their personnel departments, launching new teacher academies, and working to exert greater control over who will teach and in which schools. But these efforts, essential as they are, influence only a small portion of educators. And no matter what states and districts do to bolster the education workforce, they will need to do more and better with the talent they have. This will require a more effective and systematic approach to supporting, developing, and mobilizing the more than three million educators who will teach in and lead our schools. Other fields, from medicine and management to the military, do a far better job of providing ongoing learning opportunities and support for their professionals. But as this report shows, in education, professional learning in its current state is poorly conceived and deeply flawed. Teachers lack time and opportunities to view each other's classrooms, learn from mentors, and work collaboratively. The support and training they receive is …

Policies That Support Professional Development in an Era of Reform; Policies Must Keep Pace with New Ideas about What, When, and How Teachers Learn and Must Focus on Developing Schools' and Teachers' Capacities to Be Responsible for Student Learning

Abstract: The vision of practice that underlies the nation's reform agenda requires most teachers to rethink their own practice, to construct new classroom roles and expectations about student outcomes, and to teach in ways they have never taught before--and probably never experienced as students (Nelson and Hammerman 1996). The success of this agenda ultimately turns on teachers' success in accomplishing the serious and difficult tasks of learning the skills and perspectives assumed by new visions of practice and unlearning the practices and beliefs about students and instruction that have dominated their professional lives to date. Yet few occasions and little support for such professional development exist in teachers' environments. Because teaching for understanding relies on teachers' abilities to see complex subject matter from the perspectives of diverse students, the know-how necessary to make this vision of practice a reality cannot be prepackaged or conveyed by means of traditional top-down "teacher training" strategies. The policy problem for professional development in this era of reform extends beyond mere support for teachers' acquisition of new skills or knowledge. Professional development today also means providing occasions for teachers to reflect critically on their practice and to fashion new knowledge and beliefs about content, pedagogy, and learners (Nelson and Hammerman 1996; Prawat 1992). Beginning with preservice education and continuing throughout a teacher's career, teacher development must focus on deepening teachers' understanding of the processes of teaching and learning and of the students they teach. Effective professional development involves teachers both as learners and as teachers and allows them to struggle with the uncertainties that accompany each role. It has a number of characteristics. * It must engage teachers in concrete tasks of teaching, assessment, observation, and reflection that illuminate the processes of learning and development. * It must be grounded in inquiry, reflection, and experimentation that are participant-driven. * It must be collaborative, involving a sharing of knowledge among educators and a focus on teachers' communities of practice rather than on individual teachers. * It must be connected to and derived from teachers' work with their students. * It must be sustained, ongoing, intensive, and supported by modeling, coaching, and the collective solving of specific problems of practice. * It must be connected to other aspects of school change. Professional development of this kind signals a departure from old norms and models of "preservice" or "inservice" training. It creates new images of what, when, and how teachers learn, and these new images require a corresponding shift from policies that seek to control or direct the work of teachers to strategies intended to develop schools' and teachers' capacity to be responsible for student learning. Capacity- building policies view knowledge as constructed by and with practitioners for use in their own contexts, rather than as something conveyed by policy makers as a single solution for top-down implementation. Though the outlines of a new paradigm for professional development policy are emerging (Cohn, McLaughlin, and Talbert 1993; Darling-Hammond 1993), the hard work of developing concrete exemplars of the policies and practices that model "top-down support for bottom-up reform" has only just begun. The changed curriculum and pedagogy of professional development will require new policies that foster new structures and institutional arrangements for teachers' learning. At the same time, we will need to undertake a strategic assessment of existing policies to determine to what degree they are compatible with the vision of learning as constructed by teachers and students and with a vision of professional development as a lifelong, inquiry-based, and collegial activity (Lieberman 1995). …