While in the domain of learning the focus is shifting from acquiring knowledge to the development of competencies (Doll, 2012; Klieme, Hartig & Rauch, 2008), in the field of teacher professional development we are still speaking of knowledge mobilization and dissemination (Levin, 2008). As in the former view knowledge is integrated in a process focused towards competency building, in the latter – despite some efforts aimed at putting in stricter contact research and practice – knowledge appears rather as a separate body of “mobilizable” and rigorous notions coming from academic research. In this view, the basic paradigm is still firmly grounded on the idea of knowledge transmission rather than on the one of mutual reflection and co-construction of meaningful and effective experiences (Cheetham & Chivers, 1998; Avalos, 2011) . The common organization of teacher in-service education, mainly performed through courses and workshops (Smylie, 1989) confirms this fact. In this panorama, however, the concept of teacher competency building through on-field and enduring forms of collaboration involving education faculties and practitioners is slowly emerging and gaining momentum (Cordingley, 2008; Rickinson et al., 2003). This paper is about the following issues: 1) how teachers perceive their current professional competency and how they define it; 2) which competencies they estimate to be necessary for attaining excellence in teaching; 3) which are therefore their possible needs in terms of professional development; 4) which in-service initiatives (e.g.: workshops, coaching, collaboration with colleagues) were effective in fulfilling these needs; 5) which in-service initiatives they estimate to be effective in this task; 6) what they think educational research should do for helping them in better developing their competencies. The expectation is that, since teachers are hypothesised to act usually on the basis of different paradigms depending on the school level where they teach, in the primary school the sought competencies will be more education-centered, while in the secondary one they will be more discipline-centered. Moreover, it will be interesting to ascertain if there is some correlation between their definition of competency and their stated preferences in terms of in-service training. The inquiry will be performed through a mixed method approach, including a questionnaire with either open and closed items, followed by some interviews and will take place in some Swiss and Italian schools. The questionnaire will deal with the previously exposed six themes, while the interviews will deepen some aspects emerging from the analysis of the collected data.

Avalos, B. (2011). Teacher professional development in Teaching and Teacher Education over ten years. Teaching and teacher education, 27(1), 10-20. Cheetham, G., Chivers, G. (1998). The reflective (and competent) practitioner: a model of professional competence which seeks to harmonise the reflective practitioner and competence-based approaches. Journal of European Industrial Training, 22(7), 267-276. Cordingley, P. (2008). Research and evidence-informed practice: focusing on practice and practitioners. Cambridge Journal of Education, 38(1), 37-52. Doll, W. (2012). Developing competence. In Trueit, D. (Ed.) Pragmatism, Post-Modernism and Complexity Theory. New York: Routledge Klieme, E., Hartig, J., & Rauch, D. (2008). The concept of competence in educational contexts. In Klieme, E., Hartig, J., & Rauch, D. (Eds.) Assessment of competencies in educational contexts. Göttingen: Hogrefe Rickinson, M., Aspinall, C., Clark, A., Dawson, L., Mcleod, S., Poulton, P., Rogers, J. and Sargent, J. (2003). Connecting Research and Practice: Education for Sustainable Development. Southwell: British Educational Research Association. Smylie, M. A. (1989). Teachers' views of the effectiveness of sources of learning to teach. The elementary school journal, 89, 5, 543-558