ABSTRACT
There are increasing numbers of tutors in higher education unwilling to passively accept traditional approaches to the professional development of teachers and other professionals. These tutors sustain their educational ideals regardless of situational and institutional difficulties, if necessary suspending them until such time as they have developed the competence or created the right environment to implement them. In looking at what is essential for the further professional development of teachers and other professionals who have already completed their initial training and are practising qualified practitioners, it is necessary to ask if it is the reproduction of existing skills or the improvement of practice that is the educational aim of continued professional development? Professional skills are no longer seen purely as performance skills but include the cognitive attributes of professionals of which reflective teaching is a basic principle.
