ABSTRACT
Teachers are kept endlessly busy, not only in teaching classes, assessing work, tracking progress and reporting outcomes, but also in the time allocated to their own CPD. Teachers are exposed to fads and fashions that are claimed to be the next best way that they will learn, almost as often as they are directed to new pedagogical and curriculum strategies that will supposedly transform their teaching and students’ learning. Waves of coaching, action research, online training, lesson study and the ubiquitous high-profile conferences ebb and flow across the professional landscape. In this chapter I propose a way of making these episodes of learning do more than top up the teacher, clock up the hours or tick some boxes. I share a practice development-led model, which recognises that the professional learning ecology is complex as it is closely situated in context which are themselves complex. I also suggest that, when working well, it is possible for these interactions to support both individual professional learning and the development of teachers’ practices as well as institutional growth.
