Introduction -- What would state-of-the-art Professional Learning look like? ---Achieving state-of-the-art teacher professional learning - challenges and benefits? --- The role of standards and performance --- The tyranny of common sense ---The evidence base ---Key characteristics of effective professional learning --- Specialist expertise --- Peer support --- Embedding the evidence in national policies --- Proactive teacher contributions --- The development and use of professional learning tools --- Where next?
Summary
The author explores what teachers' ownership of Professional Learning, and their capacity and willingness to take control of it, has to offer to the profession and the comunities of students that it serves. In the first half of this paper she explores some of the operational challenges to, and benefits of, using Professional Learning - as distinct from the more traditional emphasis on Professional Development, offered to teachers by others - as a professional driver. In the second half she unpacks some of the evidence about excellence in Professional Learning in response to those challenges. Looking to the future, she explores the question 'What might the system look like if taking control of Professional Learning in the service of student learning were seen as the central priority for teacher and those who support and lead them?"
