Professional Development of Teachers

1787 Words8 Pages
Background and purpose Unless teachers are willing and able to introduce the changes in content and pedagogy that curriculum innovators strive for, these changes stand very little chance (Van den Akker, 1998). In-service professional development of teachers may therefore contribute to curriculum change. In the upper secondary streams in the Netherlands, pedagogical innovation is currently attempted for physics (Commissie Vernieuwing Natuurkunde Onderwijs, 2006). The central question in this study is whether appropriate professional development activities can be designed for this innovation on the basis of a problem posing approach. This approach is meant to combine the advantages of top-down and bottom-up approaches to curriculum innovation, in particular to the aspect of professional development, while avoiding the disadvantages. The in-service activities that are to be designed in this study should, for the case of mechanics in Form 4 of the pre-academic stream of Dutch secondary school, both bring together the views of teachers and the results of research in physics education, and lead to the development of a daily teaching practice that accords with curriculum innovation intentions (Duit et al., 2007). Rationale and framework Professional development can make an essential contribution to curriculum innovation efforts in that it may serve to minimise potential discrepancies between the designers’ and teachers’ intentions and purposes, and between the teachers’ curriculum views and their teaching. Or in terms of Van den Akker (1998) between the ‘perceived’ and ‘operational’ levels of curriculum representation. Professional development will be sought through developing reflective, collaborative communities of learning (Loucks-Horsley et al., 2003). Activities undertaken in these communities are to result in a coherent in-service professionalizing track based
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