ABSTRACT
Teacher professionalism encompasses key characteristics—professional competence, performance, and conduct—that reflect teachers’ goals and purposes, capabilities, values and beliefs, and directly impact the effectiveness of teaching. 1 As a profession, teachers value and practice the principles, standards, ethics, and legal responsibilities of teaching. 2 And, as with any profession, they must be committed to and skilled in the areas of expertise that define teaching. This chapter focuses on professionalism within the context of the following questions 3 :
What does professionalism mean?
What does the research say about professionalism of the teacher?
What are research-based quality indicators for professionalism?
How can professionalism be documented?
What are rating scale options for professionalism?
