Routledge Transformational Professional Learning: Making a Difference in Schools

Emerging from an education world that sees professional learning as a tool to positively shape teaching practice in order to improve student learning, Transformational Professional Learning elucidates professional learning that is transformational for teachers, school leaders, and schools. Written from the unique ‘pracademic’ perspective of an author who is herself a practising teacher, school leader, and researcher, this book articulates the why and the what of professional learning. It acts as a bridge between research and practice by weaving scholarly literature together with the lived experience of the author and with the voices of those working in schools. It covers topics from conferences, coaching, and collaboration, to teacher standards and leadership of professional learning. This book questions the ways in which professional learning is often wielded in educational settings and shows where teachers, school leaders, system leaders, and researchers can best invest their time and resources in order to support and develop the individuals, teams, and cultures in schools. It will be of great interest to teachers, leaders within schools, staff responsible for professional learning in school contexts, professional learning consultants, professional learning providers, and education researchers. Review Occasionally, a book comes along that a field desperately needs. Transformational Professional Learning is such a book. It is clear, accessible and profoundly practical. Cutting through the vast literature on professional learning, it reminds us that the ultimate end game is making a difference to learners. Put simply, this book is a must read. Professor Alma Harris, University of Bath Deborah Netolicky’s Transformational Professional Learning: Making a Difference in Schools is a must-read for anyone with an interest in developing authentic and impactful professional learning for themselves and for teachers and school leaders. As a pracademic, Netolicky expertly weaves together thoughtful and thorough analyses of existing international research literatures, her own original research findings, and her in-depth expertise from an extensive career as a teacher and school leader. Few books accomplish the complex and sophisticated task of genuinely bringing together new research insights and new practical applications; this book achieves this and more to create new possibilities for understanding and action. Transformation professional learning avoids one size fits all solutions, magic bullets, and artificial polarisations that characterise much educational debate to produce a book that places the complexity, identity, work, voices, and humanity of educators at the centre of professional learning to benefit their own development and the learning of the students they serve. Associate Professor Carol Campbell, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto If we want to produce ambitious changes in student learning goals, we will need to reimagine and invigorate new forms for learning for the adults who are striving to produce these outcomes. In this compact and timely book, Deborah Netolicky deftly balances research summaries of effective professional learning with vivid stories from the field that illustrate these ideas at work. Bruce Wellman, Co-Director, MiraVia LLC In this comprehensive guidebook for getting the most from the many different kinds of professional development initiatives, Dr Deborah Netolicky begins by showing how to identify and engage better with customary professional learning that is mostly informational in nature. Netolicky then leads readers into transformational professional learning―that is, learning that both challenges and also supports professionals in examining and sometimes changing their beliefs, attitudes and values that govern behaviours and drive improvement to professional practice. Netolicky’s own rich and deep experiences, as a researching