This raises questions about the purposes of professional learning, particularly for
serving experienced teachers.
6.3 Purposes of Professional Learning
The OECD background report (Schleicher 2011 ), written in preparation for thefirst
international summit of education ministers on the teaching profession, illustrates
some of the tensions embedded in the current constructions of professional learning.
The report echoes some of the criticisms Donaldson ( 2011 ) made of professional
learning in Scottish education:
schools and systems need to better match the costs and benefits of, and supply and demand
for, professional development. Results from Talis [The OECD’sTeaching and Learning
International Survey] show that, across countries, relatively few teachers participate in the
kinds of professional development they believe has the largest impact on their work,
namely qualifications programs and individual and collaborative research. (Schleicher
2011 : 27)The report identified a range of purposes for the development of teachers beyond
their initial teacher education:
- updating individuals’knowledge of a subject in light of recent advances in the
area; - updating individuals’skills and approaches in the light of the development of
new teaching techniques and objectives, new circumstances, and new educa-
tional research; - enabling individuals to apply changes made to curricula or other aspects of
teaching practice; - enabling schools to develop and apply new strategies concerning the curriculum
and other aspects of teaching practice; - exchanging information and expertise among teachers and others, e.g. aca-
demics and industrialists; or - helping weaker teachers become more effective (Schleicher 2011 : 24).
While critical of extant provision, what is noteworthy in this list is the focus on
updating and application of ideas generated elsewhere rather than in the immediate
site of practice. This construction of the purposes of continuing professional
learning reflects much of the provision in Scottish education. There has been a
focus on looking for effective forms of professional learning whereby policy pri-
orities and associated practices are applied to the setting of the classroom. In the
purposes above there is one reference to schools developing strategies and teachers
exchanging expertise. In Scottish education insufficient attention has been paid to
the position of teachers to move from them being the recipients of professional
learning opportunities to active constructors in the process of professional learning.
90 M.A. McMahon et al.