Cultivating Transformations through Learning Experiences: Priorities in Continuing Professional Development

In this contribution we would like review developments in the TL21professional development programme for teachers in the last few years. Learning Anew, the final report on the TL21 project, was published in January 2008. The last chapter contained not a set of recommendations but a collection of “ideas worth considering” by all of the main parties in Irish post-primary education: teachers, school leaders, students, managerial bodies, schools inspectors, policymakers. These ideas, seven in total, were based on priorities for teachers’ CPD that came to define the project’s work during its active phase. Some of these were envisaged from the start in the project’s main aims. Others emerged during the course of the project’s intensive research phase (2003-07). All of them however became central concerns in the project’s developmental initiatives, and in the ongoing TL21 Professional Development Programme that was inaugurated following the completion of the intensive research phase

Cultivating Transformations through Learning Experiences: Priorities in Continuing Professional Development

In this contribution we would like review developments in the TL21professional development programme for teachers in the last few years. Learning Anew, the final report on the TL21 project, was published in January 2008. The last chapter contained not a set of recommendations but a collection of “ideas worth considering” by all of the main parties in Irish post-primary education: teachers, school leaders, students, managerial bodies, schools inspectors, policymakers. These ideas, seven in total, were based on priorities for teachers’ CPD that came to define the project’s work during its active phase. Some of these were envisaged from the start in the project’s main aims. Others emerged during the course of the project’s intensive research phase (2003-07). All of them however became central concerns in the project’s developmental initiatives, and in the ongoing TL21 Professional Development Programme that was inaugurated following the completion of the intensive research phase

Evidence and its consequences in educational research

We begin by arguing that the continuing dominance of ‘evidence-based’ thinking in educational policymaking does serious harm to the notion of evidence itself; also that it brings a loss of coherence to education as a practice that might wish to be regarded as a coherent and research-informed one. The second section of the article suggests that the invidious consequences of ‘evidence-based’ thinking are likely to continue unless energetically challenged by a vibrant and robust understanding of education as a practice in its own right. In elucidating such an understanding, we investigate closely the notions of practice and practitioner, and their intrinsic connections, drawing on landmark researches on practice by authors like Alasdair MacIntyre and Joseph Dunne. Building on the understanding of education as a practice in its own right, the third section argues that the Dewey-inspired notion of justified warrant, rather than proof or replicability, is more appropriate to research claims made in education. Here we focus in particular on action research, which has experienced recurring difficulties in having its research credentials recognise

Cultivating Transformations through Learning Experiences: Priorities in Continuing Professional Development

In this contribution we would like review developments in the TL21professional development programme for teachers in the last few years. Learning Anew, the final report on the TL21 project, was published in January 2008. The last chapter contained not a set of recommendations but a collection of “ideas worth considering” by all of the main parties in Irish post-primary education: teachers, school leaders, students, managerial bodies, schools inspectors, policymakers. These ideas, seven in total, were based on priorities for teachers’ CPD that came to define the project’s work during its active phase. Some of these were envisaged from the start in the project’s main aims. Others emerged during the course of the project’s intensive research phase (2003-07). All of them however became central concerns in the project’s developmental initiatives, and in the ongoing TL21 Professional Development Programme that was inaugurated following the completion of the intensive research phase

Cultivating Transformations through Learning Experiences: Priorities in Continuing Professional Development

In this contribution we would like review developments in the TL21professional development programme for teachers in the last few years. Learning Anew, the final report on the TL21 project, was published in January 2008. The last chapter contained not a set of recommendations but a collection of “ideas worth considering” by all of the main parties in Irish post-primary education: teachers, school leaders, students, managerial bodies, schools inspectors, policymakers. These ideas, seven in total, were based on priorities for teachers’ CPD that came to define the project’s work during its active phase. Some of these were envisaged from the start in the project’s main aims. Others emerged during the course of the project’s intensive research phase (2003-07). All of them however became central concerns in the project’s developmental initiatives, and in the ongoing TL21 Professional Development Programme that was inaugurated following the completion of the intensive research phase

Learning Anew : Final Report of the Research and Development Project "Teaching and Learning for the 21st Century" 2003-07

A school-university initiative by the Education Department, NUI Maynooth and fifteen post-primary schools in Leinster

Learning Anew : Final Report of the Research and Development Project "Teaching and Learning for the 21st Century" 2003-07

A school-university initiative by the Education Department, NUI Maynooth and fifteen post-primary schools in Leinster