Teacher professional learning and development (PLD) happens inside a wide and evolving environment. From the perspective of teacher lifelong learning, this stage follows initial education and induction, and should be a constant factor in the development of professionality (Hoyle, 1974) during the whole career of teachers. Since the emergence of new phenomena and issues in school systems is steadily increasing, PLD’s importance has grown during recent years. From a systemic standpoint, the aspects interacting in the process leading to teacher PLD can take place at three main levels: macro/whole school system; meso/individual school and micro/classroom (Ostinelli, 2023). During these last years a number of symposia at the EERA-ECER conferences contributed to the publishing of a volume on teacher PLD in Europe (Innovation in Teacher Professional Learning in Europe, 2023). The focus was on the different approaches to teacher professional learning in Europe, considered from the whole system perspective. Actually, the book provided the reader with an extended view of this issue. However, due to the complexity of school systems, it is important to extend the analysis to other systemic levels. Following a path ideally leading from macro to micro (that is, from whole system to classroom level), it is important to increase the knowledge of what practiced at the meso level, investigating innovative practices and projects involving individual schools. The idea is therefore to illustrate a number of different approaches to teacher PLD in the field, focusing the attention on innovative experiences involving individual schools. The presentations included in the symposium deal with different themes. The first one, in times where digitalization and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are affecting heavily school systems and at large the global educational domain, is about the development - starting from actual teacher skills - of new competencies, in the context of innovative and more dynamic relationships between these technologies and pedagogy. For instance, the ethical aspects in using these information-based approaches are paramount (Unesco, 2023). A second theme is the match between continuous teacher education and teachers’ and principals’ needs (Ryan and Deci, 2020; Zhang, Admiraal and Saab, 2021). In fact, teachers have various needs concerning situations and processes happening in the classroom, and their fulfilment is important in building a motivation for change, relative to teaching and class management innovation. A third issue is about how to develop teacher agency in Professional learning communities, holding into account that the context where they act is more complex than what hypothesized by various models. In fact, very often rational, linear cause-effects interventions fail to achieve the desired results because of their limited perspective. Finally, yet importantly, sustainability is, like in other domains, a key factor also in teacher PLD. Interactions between schools, children, families to create sustainable improvement from specific professional learning and development using a facilitated action research framework are an important object of study in the context of the development of teacher professional expertise.

Ryan, R., Deci, E. (2020). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from a self-determination theory perspective: Definitions, theory, practices, and future directions. Contemporary educational psychology, 61, 101860. Hoyle, E. (1974) ‘Professionality, professionalism and control in teaching’ London Educational Review 3(2), 13–19 Ostinelli, G. (2023) A Framework for Analysing Teacher Professional Development. In Jones, K., Ostinelli, G. and Crescentini, A. (Eds.) Innovation in Teacher Professional Learning in Europe. London: Routledge. UNESCO (2023) Guidance for generative AI in education and research. Paris: UNESCO Zhang, X., Admiraal, W., Saab, N. (2021). Teachers’ motivation to participate in continuous professional development: relationship with factors at the personal and school level. Journal of Education for Teaching, 47(5), 714-731.