Professional learning provision in the 2013 report is then seen as nationally and
institutionally organized, involving a wide range of modes and foci. There is only
one short mention of professional development through‘mobility opportunities’
across the EU; this is in contrast to a later (European Commission 2015 ) report
which places heavy emphasis on European mobility for school teachers and the
cross-national learning developments it can bring. There are few specific details of
what good quality learning provision looks like, and there is little emphasis on
listening to teacher educators’voices and working from their self-identified needs.
The report works rather on defining professional learning from nationally defined
competences which in turn reflect national (and often institutional imperatives); this
leaves a vacuum which other associations and researchers havefilled, however.
A survey in the Netherlands of teacher educators’professional development in
schools and universities (Dengerink et al. 2015 ) showed different learning needs
and preferences at different career stages and locations for work. In their early years
in teacher education, for example, inexperienced teacher educators struggled tofind
their way and form new identities; many wanted coaching or supervision to support
them. More experienced educators preferred to pursue individual and communal
interests in enquiry-based learning. School-based teacher educators predominantly
wanted professional development on co-operation with the teacher education
institution and on coaching, while the focus of university-based teacher educators
was mainly on developing their personal pedagogy. In terms ofhowto learn,
teacher educators preferred informal learning (reading, attending events, practi-
tioner research initiatives and focused discussions with peers). School-based tea-
cher educators mainly wanted to learn‘together with colleagues in their own
region’, who were also involved in partnership between schools and universities,
while university-based wanted to learn individually or with colleagues within their
own institution and, as their experience grew, also with colleagues from other
HEIs.
A recent study by the Info-TED group of over 700 Higher Education-based
teacher educators from across Europe showed that, whilst 72% recorded some
degree of satisfaction with the professional learning opportunities they had received
to date, 97% also showed degrees of interest in furthering their learning. As in the
Dutch survey, here the results showed that‘intentional’or‘facilitated’informal
learning with colleagues was the preferred mode of learning; the desired foci
included current policy developments and best practice in pedagogy, curriculum
development, research skills, scholarly writing and using new technologies and
social media. Learning could be best achieved by informal and‘facilitated’col-
laboration with colleagues, targeted mentoring from experienced colleagues, and
attendance at conferences and workshops. Analysis of this large-scale study is still
in the early stages, but the results undoubtedly indicate valuable directions for the
design of teacher educators’professional learning.
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