Teacher Learning is a Complex Process
As any experienced teacher knows, professional development (PD) cannot be reduced to a linear model whereby the acquisition and subsequent application of a new technique will yield consistent results in student learning. The process of developing professional knowledge and skills is complex.
Opfer and Pedder (2011) used complexity theory as a framework to review research about K-12 teachers’ PD and identified three subsystems that influence teacher learning:
- the teacher
- the school
- the PD learning activity
Each subsystem is made up of multiple elements that continually interact within and across the subsystems, “in ways that are unpredictable but also highly patterned” (p. 379).
Traditional PD events, an in-service workshop, for example, may focus on one or more of these elements and link a discrete method to student outcomes. But that only works if it fits within the school and classroom contexts. Opfer and Peddar tell us “‘effective’ teacher learning requires multiple and cyclic movements between the systems of influence in teachers’ worlds” (p. 386).
A robust, complex, and dynamic PLN holds the potential to influence teacher learning. In the next section you’ll evaluate your PLN as a professional development activity.
