The rapid changes in life open up the situations of ambiguity and uncertainty, which not only triggers various challenges but also presents unlimited opportunities, encourages the society to change its customary procedures and behaviour, while simultaneously changing people’s thinking and beliefs. The information flow replaces previous knowledge with new discoveries and insights which require that we learn to live and work differently. Thus, in this context, a special role falls on the school and the teacher: to be a teacher preparing children for the future and, at the same time, to become a constant learner who is open to change, the search for new truths, and self-discoveries. Therefore, issues of effective professional development (Porter et al., 2000; Garet et al., 2001; Desimone et al., 2002; Darling-Hammond et al., 2017; Caena, 2011) that would respond to the societal needs, promote not only the student’s but also the teacher’s progress, and motivate them to grow when pursuing better personal results (Guskey, 2000; Evans, 2008; 2014) have become increasingly relevant.

The phenomenon of the professional growth of teachers and their personal professional growth experiences are not widely analysed in the field of educational research. More attention is being paid to professional development which can be characterised by specific professional development activities, such as seminars, courses, conferences, and the like. Professional growth is a process changing the individual’s personal world (value approaches, self-esteem, thinking, behaviour) related to the teacher’s constant improvement in the context of integrating the teaching of children and the teacher’s own learning in order to achieve a higher quality of his/her activities. This process is related to the very teacher’s activity and the personal changes which the teacher is bound to experience by consciously and responsibly using the development opportunities provided by the school. Thus, the problem of this research is outlined as the coherence of the interaction between professional growth experiences and professional development opportunities provided by the school. Therefore, this research is aimed to answer the following question: How does the personal professional development framework which is applied at school promote the professional growth of teachers?

The research implemented a phenomenographic research strategy. The application of phenomenography as a research strategy focuses on people’s experiences of reality, on the diversity of ways of knowing the world, thereby giving the researcher a rich, holistic understanding of how people conceptualise a phenomenon (Marton, 1981, 1986, 1992; Säljö, 1997; Åkerlind, 2012). The main focus is on how things appear to people in their world and how people explain to themselves and others what is happening around them (Barnard et al., 1999). The phenomenological direction of the phenomenographic research was chosen thus focusing on the analysis of the learning experience while not including the learning results. The focus on the teachers’ professional growth experiences aims to distinguish and highlight similar or different trends (Hasselgren & Beach, 1997). The research was conducted in a general education school (progymnasium) in Lithuania, where a peculiar framework of the teacher personal professional development (PPD) has been applied in response to the essential principles of teacher professional development. The research was started by conducting individual semi-structured phenomenographic interviews with 16 teachers of the school. The research data was analysed by using the phenomenographic methodology going deep into various individual experiences in search of similarities. Each interview text was read through several times in order to define the categories and the subcategories revealing them.

The results of the phenomenographic research revealed that the experiences of the professional growth of teachers through participation in the school’s personal professional development (PPD) framework encompass three categories: 1) changes determined by the teacher’s reflection as an experience of professional growth; 2) collegial collaboration while seeking coherence between personal and institutional goals; 3) personal professional development enabled by the organisational framework. The experiences of professional growth, as revealed by the involved teachers, which illustrate the features characteristic of each level (individual, group, institutional), were discovered by juxtaposing different opinions and looking for similarities between them. At every level (individual, collegial, institutional), educational elements emerge which can be developed in order to improve the PPD framework and create more favourable conditions for the professional growth of teachers. The adjustment of elements of each level depends on different factors which are largely influenced by the teachers themselves, their subjective attitude, experiences, and personality traits. The outcomes of efficient activities are determined by a clearly structured model which facilitates communication, encourages teachers and leaders to plan activities in advance, discuss and collaborate. The existence of the structure helps to rationally use resources, especially the resources of time and intelligence, to distribute responsibilities, allows transparent monitoring and self-evaluation, during which the collected data are used to plan and improve further activities. Practices created over a long period of time are also efficient in the sense that they enhance the organisation’s microclimate, promote open sharing of both successes and concerns.

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