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Teaching Learning and Leadership

Professional development for teachers and school leaders

Like teacher education, professional development for teachers is now recognised as a vital component of policies to enhance the quality of teaching and learning in schools. Consequently, there is increased interest in research that identifies features of effective professional learning. Considerable funds are allocated to a wide variety of professional development programs from a variety of sources. As investment increases, policy makers are increasingly asking for evidence about its effects not only on classroom practice, but also on student learning outcomes. They are also looking for research that can guide them in designing programs that are more likely to lead to significant and sustained improvement in students' opportunities to learn.

There is a need, therefore, for more sophisticated methods for evaluating professional development programs, with the capacity to meet these information needs. In the not too distant past, when many professional development courses placed teachers in the role of an audience, questionnaires distributed at the door as teachers left sufficed. Strategies for professional development have now become much more complex, long term and embedded in schools. Major funds may be allocated, for example, to training school-based staff developers and providing them with time release, developing curriculum support materials, and on-line learning.

Recently completed projects in this area include:

Reports, articles, and conference presentations relating to professional development for teachers and school leaders:

Ingvarson, L., Meiers, M. & Beavis, A. (2005, January 29). Factors affecting the impact of professional development programs on teachers' knowledge, practice, student outcomes & efficacy. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 13(10).

Meiers, M., & Ingvarson, L., (2005). Investigating the links between teacher professional development and student learning outcomes. Report to the Commonwealth Department of Education Australian Council for Educational Research.

Ingvarson, L. (2005). Getting professional development right. ACER Annual Conference Proceedings 2005 Using data to support student learning. Melbourne: ACER Press.

Meiers, M. (2005). Evaluation of the Getting it Right Literacy and Numeracy Strategy in Western Australian Schools ACER Annual Conference Proceedings 2005 Using data to support student learning. Melbourne: ACER Press.

Elsworth, G., Kleinhenz, E. & Beavis, A. (2004). Evaluation of the Middle Years Reform Program. Melbourne, RMIT.

Ingvarson, L., Meiers, M. & Beavis, A. (October, 2003). Evaluating the quality and impact of professional development programs. ACER Annual Conference Proceedings 2003 Building Teacher Quality: What Does The Research Tell Us? Melbourne: ACER Press.

Ingvarson, L.C. (2002). Building a learning profession. Paper No 1: Commissioned Research Series, Australian College of Educators.

Ingvarson, L.C. (2000). Control and the reform of professional development. In J. Elliott (Ed.), Images of Educational Reform (pp. 159-172). Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press.