The actual situation in school practice regarding school reform and teacher professional development is characterized by several recurring problems. Educational change in schools often is characterized by superficial implementation of innovations, the absence of sustained change, and restricted improvement in students’ learning results (Fullan, 2007). Some regularly mentioned problems in teacher professional development are the isolation of initiatives, the one-shot approaches, limited transfer to work context, and unclear effects on teaching and students’ learning results (Imants & Van Veen, 2010). This paper starts from the belief that the effectiveness of both professional development and school reform practices will benefit from a more integrated approach.

From a theoretical point of view teachers’ professional development and school reform originally were separate fields of research and theory. At the end of the 80-ties awareness of connections between the two theoretical fields emerged. Teacher beliefs/behavior and instruction characteristics were regarded as essential factors in school reform and effectiveness, while conditions in teachers’ work context were identified as essential factors in effective professional development. Nevertheless, in their review of the research on teacher change Richardson and Placier (2001) distinguished two traditions: research on individual teacher learning on the one hand, and research on the school as a context for teacher learning on the other. They note that these two bodies of literature “largely stand on their own – almost entirely uninformed by each other” (2001, p. 937). The actual situation in the field of theory is that no integration between the two fields is realized in terms of a comprehensive model for professional development and school reform.

The aim of the paper is to explore the opportunities for connecting recent insights in professional development and school reform into one model. The general assumption underlying this paper is that connecting these developments and discussions creates 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. An agency perspective on teacher workplace learning will serve as the lens to develop this connected view  (Vähäsantanen & Etaläpelto, 2009). Two interrelated steps will be made.

(1)    An agency perspective will be developed on the teachers’ role in professional development  and school reform. To reach this end, the model of teacher professional growth that is developed by Clarke and Hollingworth (2002) will be reinterpreted in terms of school reform.

(2) Professional development and school reform will  be interpreted from a workplace learning perspective as a process in which learning and working are integrated within the context of teachers’ daily work environment in schools (Ellström, 2001;  Imants & Van Veen, 2010).

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