The Role of Situated Professional Development for Diffusing Educational Innovations Across Contexts

• In Event: Poster Session 9
  In Poster Session: Leading and Addressing the Complexities of School Improvement

Abstract

This paper focuses on the processes and structures of situated professional development (PD) embedded in the context of innovation diffusion that enable teachers implement, spread, and take ownership of educational innovations. A multiple-case study examines innovations that have diffused within and across schools to elicit similarities and differences of situated PD processes and structures across three innovations in Singapore. Using thematic analysis, documents describing the innovations and interviews with stakeholders in different contexts are analyzed. Preliminary findings demonstrate that structural supports from school leaders and iterative processes of “Planning-Enacting-Refining” in teacher communities comprising multiple stakeholders enable teachers (1) transit from researchers-dependent mentees to peer-mentors and (2) become teacher leaders who champion teacher learning processes in within and across school contexts.

Authors

• Shu-Shing Lee, National Institute of Education - Nanyang Technological University

• Hari Jang, National Institute of Education - Nanyang Technological University