Given the complexity of teaching, continuing teacher professional development (CPD) is essential for maintaining and enhancing teaching effectiveness, and bridging the gap between ever-evolving theory and practice. Technological advancements have opened new opportunities for digital tools to support CPD. However, the successful integration of such digital tools into practice poses challenges. It requires adherence to CPD prerequisites and acknowledgment of the complexity of the professional development process. This study explored the applicability of the developed digital PE teacher professional development TARGET-tool in a secondary school PE context. We examined the perceived usability of this tool and gained insights into the process of teachers’ professional development as a result of using the tool. Ten PE teachers from different schools implemented the TARGET- tool within their PE context for a period of 4 to 6 weeks. Individual semi-structured inter- views and the System Usability Scale provided insights into the perceived usability and the process of teacher professional development. The TARGET-tool demonstrated its potential as an effective tool for supporting teachers’ professional development. Future tool improve- ments were identified to further optimize the perceived usability, such as simplifying com- plex features, providing additional support and resources, and improving (data) presenta- tions. Using the Interconnected Model of Professional Growth as a theoretical basis, it was demonstrated how the use of the TARGET-tool engages teachers as active and reflective participants in their professional development and induces changes within the external domain, the domain of practice, the domain of consequences, and the personal domain.
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Lesson study is a professional development program that combines teachers’ active engagement and observation of teachers’ lessons. During a lesson study teachers collaborate in a lesson study team. In this study, four participating research supervisors have developed, taught, evaluated and redesigned a supervision meeting with a focus on undergraduate students’ research skills. During so-called research lessons, supervisors experimented with open questioning and giving positive feedback instead of giving instruction and explanations. As a result, the participating supervisors expected their students to substantiate, argue, and consider the choices they made. We aimed to identify the impact of this lesson study approach on research supervisors’ professionaldevelopment and specifically on their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) as most important learning outcome. Triangulation by method was applied to measure supervisors’ learning outcomes and learning activities; learning reports, videotaped lesson study meetings, and exit interviews were analyzed on indicators of change (e.g. ‘I have learned’). Coding results showed two different learning outcomes and four different learning activities. Each learning outcome, and the corresponding activities were connected to the four domains of the Interconnected Model of Professional Growth. Different pathways for each supervisor’s PCK were determined by constructing pictorial representations per supervisor. This study shows that lesson study is a promising professionaldevelopment method that can have an impact on research supervisors’ PCK. Our supervisors followed different pathways of PCK change, in which the learningactivities of considering your own practice and getting ideas from others contributed the most to these changes.
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This study reports on a Professional Development Program (PDP) designed to raise teachers' subject specific language awareness (TSLA) as a relevant and specific element of their practical knowledge and improve their language integrated teaching behaviour. The design of the PDP was based on the interconnected model of teacher professional growth (Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002). Data were collected using semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and video-stimulated interviews. The PDP resulted in change in both teachers' subject-specific language awareness and related teaching behaviour. Teachers' sense of responsibility to address students' language learning appeared to be relevant for teachers' change of behaviour.
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