Professional Development Design: Embedding Educational Reform in New Zealand

Source: Teaching and Teacher Education, Volume 25, Issue 1, January 2009, Pages 181-189
(Reviewed by the Portal Team)

Teacher professional development variously supports ongoing skill development, new knowledge, and systems change. In New Zealand, the implementation of major assessment reforms in senior secondary schools provided opportunity to investigate teacher professional development as a function of the particular stage of an educational reform.
The authors hypothesized that whether or not teachers and school leaders would be satisfied with the professional development provided at their school would be heavily influenced by the extent to which opportunities were provided at school level for teachers to have an impact on the professional development available to them.

Multi-method data sources including teacher surveys and school case studies were employed to evaluate professional development during the embedding stage of a standards-based assessment system, revealing a positive relationship between professional satisfaction and teacher involvement in setting priorities for the professional development. Other positive features were networking, personalized learning, and facilitator expertise.
This research illustrates the importance of tailoring professional learning to implementation phase of an organizational change.