Seminar: CRME: Continuing professional development in inquiry-based pedagogies: From a transitional to a transformative model

Fco. Javier García García (University of Jaén) and Geoff Wake (The University of Nottingham)

The continuing professional development of teachers is a major issue. On the one hand, teachers need opportunities to reflect on their practice and to enhance their professional competencies. On the other hand, research needs a better understanding of how teacher professional competencies grow, resulting in optimized actions and resources. In the background, the eternal debate between theory and practice. And, at the end, the issue of effectiveness: designing professional development that really transforms teacher beliefs and practices.

This general scenario will be tackled in this seminar,in the case of the European project PRIMAS. In the context of designing and implementing professional development actions aiming at a wider uptake of inquiry-based learning methodologies, we will reflect on the design principles for transformative professional development. Starting from some initial reflections about transmissive-transitional-transformative professional development, we will introduce a tentative model for teacher transformative professional development. Then, we will analyse how PRIMAS professional development materials and actions turn this model into practice. Finally, we will invite the audience to reflect and discuss on design principles for transformative professional development actions.