Through a Tangled Wonderland: What Makes Transformative Professional Learning for Teachers and School Leaders

• In Event: Professional Learning and the Change Process

Abstract

This study travels ‘down the rabbit hole’ of story, with its unique approach to the phenomenon of professional learning. It employs narrative inquiry to examine the perspectives of fourteen educators in one independent Australian school during its pilot teacher growth intervention. Extended literary metaphor with known literary characters operates as a conceptual frame. Situated within the conversation of the global push for teacher quality and professional learning, the study generates context-specific connections between lived moments of being, becoming, learning and leading. While the study set out to explore how educators’ experiences of professional learning (trans)form their senses of professional identity, it found that it is not just professional learning, but epiphanic life experiences that shape professional selves and practices.

Author

• Deborah M Netolicky, Murdoch University