Teacher professional learning and development (PLD) is an important aspect in contemporary school systems. Towards the end of the 90s, the traditional practice of teacher in-service training started to transform itself into teacher continuing professional development – CPD (Harland & Kinder, 1997). A key idea in this process was lifelong learning (Antikainen, 2001; Day, 1999). This concept includes two parts: one related to continuity over time and the other to learning. The development of studies on teacher professional learning (Timperley, 2011) was also paramount. Here, teachers should gain new knowledge and competencies and not only improve their own practice but increasingly the practice of others. Other important concepts are the ways in which professional learning draws on support through professional learning communities (Stoll & Louis, 2007); the role of mentoring in collaborative approaches to professional learning; and the need to take complex rather than linear perspectives of professional learning provision.

Both ideas of continuity and professional learning merge today in the concept of teacher PLD (O’Brien & Jones, 2014). In this perspective, we should consider teacher professional development as a continuing learning process distributed over three basic stages: pre-service teacher education, induction, and continuing PLD, the latter being the object of the present symposium.

If we look at today’s educational panorama, we can find both different cultures/practices and theories dealing with teacher PLD (e.g. Avalos, 2010; Darling-Hammond & Lieberman, 2012; Opfer & Pedder, 2011). In a fast-changing world, where school is requested to continuously improve, teacher professionalism – and/or professionality (Hoyle, 1974) – is a key element in this process.

An important aspect of teacher PLD is the relationship between research in education and practice inside the classroom (Ostinelli, 2016). In fact, if the teacher is to become a true professional, s/he should not only be able to model her/his action in conformity with the more recent pedagogical approaches, for instance from the domain of learning sciences (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006; Sawyer, 2005), but also be capable of adapting/transforming and/or creating new knowledge and new competencies.

For a similar evolution to happen there is the need for some important changes to happen in the various national school systems. Kennedy’s (2014) classification of various models of professional learning and development gave an insight into how CPD or PLD are interpreted in different systems and institutions, from the provision of training, often in a deficit situation, to collaborative models epitomised by professional learning communities, to transformative approaches underpinned by practitioner research and inquiry.

There is still a variety of practice at individual, institutional, and national levels. Policy varies, terminology varies and practice varies. This symposium entitled “Teacher professional learning and development in Europe” will take the unique opportunity of having education professionals from many different countries together to compare and contrast the different approaches to professional learning and development across Europe. After a first introductory overview and broad analysis on the status of teacher PLD in Europe, scholars from ten European countries will illustrate important issues relative to teacher PLD in their respective national school systems.

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