Professional learning: what teachers want to learn

Louws, M.L.

In light of the argument that many teacher professional development (PD) initiatives are not adapted to meet what teachers say they want to learn, we were interested to learn about teachers’ self-directed learning. The studies in this thesis therefore aimed to address what, how and why teachers want to learn and how this relates to their years of teaching experience and their workplace context. For this purpose 31 teachers from two secondary schools were interviewed and a large-scale questionnaire study with 309 teachers was conducted. From the interview studies we could deduct teachers’ professional learning goals, their professional concerns, the relation between them, and teachers’ perceptions of their workplace as a learning environment. The questionnaire study produced data on teachers’ preferences for learning domains and learning activities and their reasons to learn.
The results showed that teachers’ learning was...

In light of the argument that many teacher professional development (PD) initiatives are not adapted to meet what teachers say they want to learn, we were interested to learn about teachers’ self-directed learning. The studies in this thesis therefore aimed to address what, how and why teachers want to learn and how this relates to their years of teaching experience and their workplace context. For this purpose 31 teachers from two secondary schools were interviewed and a large-scale questionnaire study with 309 teachers was conducted. From the interview studies we could deduct teachers’ professional learning goals, their professional concerns, the relation between them, and teachers’ perceptions of their workplace as a learning environment. The questionnaire study produced data on teachers’ preferences for learning domains and learning activities and their reasons to learn.
The results showed that teachers’ learning was mostly aimed at improving their teaching practice, but also at professional learning in a broader sense, and about issues currently encountered at the school. Learning about communication and classroom organization was a topic mentioned by early- and late-career teachers. Mid-career teachers had learning goals aimed at extra-curricular tasks and at new challenges besides the goals related to their teaching practice.

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