Research, policy, and  practices in the fields of teachers’ professional development and school reform are conceptually related. For school reform to be effective, teacher learning is a prerequisite, and the contexts of the school and the work environment play important roles in professional development (Fullan, 2007). Notwithstanding this relationship, research and discussions on these themes take place in separate discourses.  Moreover, research on individual teacher learning and research on the school as a context for teacher learning remain unconnected (Richardson & Placier, 2001).

The general assumption underlying this paper is that connecting these developments and discussions will promote improvements in professional development as well as in school reform, and will help to solve some theoretical and practical problems in these fields, for example how to understand and deal with teacher resistance regarding school reform, or how workplace learning trajectories in schools can promote individual and shared professional development. An integrated model for professional development and school reform is constructed (figure is not included in proposal; copy function does not work), based on an agency perspective, and a workplace learning perspective

This model builds on the Clarke & Hollingsworth (2002) model for teacher professional growth in several respects. Personal domain and domain of practices (C&H model) are integrated in the domain of individual practice. The external domain (C&H model) is differentiated in the domain of organizational practice and the external domain. Relationships in both models are highly interactive. Important to note is that in the integrated model content of school reform and professional development are assumed to vary according to the sense making by participating teachers. The same holds for organizational practices: teachers’ work environment is assumed to be co-constructed by participating teachers themselves. In the paper attention will be paid to the similarities and differences between this integrated model and related models, for example the Tynjälä (2008) model on workplace learning.

The model creates opportunities for theoretical and empirical research on interconnected issues of professional development and school reform. As such the models creates new opportunities for improvements in professional develop as well as in school reform, and will be helpful in solving some theoretical problems in these fields. More specifically it is assumed that recent insights in the school as a workplace and in teacher workplace learning serve as elements to connect both positions, and that an agency perspective on teacher workplace learning serves as the lens to develop a connected view. The aim of this paper is to test the assumed relationships between concepts in the model by comparing results of research on professional development and school reform with the relationships in the model. 

Clarke, D. & Hollingsworth, H. (2002). Elaborating a model of teacher professional growth. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 947-967. Fullan, M. (2007). The new meaning of educational change. 4th ed. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Imants, J. & Van Veen, K. (2010). Teacher learning as workplace learning. In: P. Peterson, E. Baker, & B. McGaw (Eds.). International Encyclopedia of Education (3rd edition, vol. 7) [pp. 569-574]. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Richardson, V. & Placier, P. (2001). Teacher change. In: V. Richardson (Ed.). Handbook of Research on Teaching [pp. 905-947]. Washington, DC: AERA. Tynjälä, P. (2008). Perspectives into learning at the workplace. Educational Research Review, 3, 130-154.