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Sustaining professional development: Rhetoric or reality?

Article · January 2008

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Sustaining professional development: rhetoric or reality?

Dr Jenny Poskitt Massey University

Kerry Taylor Private Consultant

Postal address Graduate School of Education

College of Education
Massey University
Private Bag 11-222
Palmerston North

Phone (06) 356 9099 ext 8635

email address for correspondence [email protected] or

[email protected]

Dr Jenny Poskitt is the Director of the Graduate School in the College of Education,
Massey University, Palmerston North. Jenny can be contacted on
[email protected]. Kerry Taylor is a private educational consultant working
in Auckland for the Education Group, Ltd. Kerry can be contacted on
[email protected]

The authors acknowledge research funding support from the Ministry of Education,
without which this research would not be possible.
ABSTRACT
Sustaining professional development (PD) is a challenge for schools due to
unrelenting pressures for change, staff turnover and the high number of professional
development opportunities available to schools creating pressure on schools to
participate or „miss out‟ on opportunities as they arise. This paper reports an
exploratory case study of a sample of New Zealand schools, where professional
development in assessment has been sustained up to five years since the initial
development. Document and interview analysis reveals a number of key components
that need to be in place in order to achieve educational sustainability: having an
effective professional development model, understanding change processes, focusing
on pedagogy (specifically teaching, learning and assessment), monitoring effects of
professional development on teachers and students, recognising challenges, attending
to theoretical and practical factors ensuring continuity, and resulting in efficacious
and „cutting edge‟ professional practice.

KEYWORDS: professional development, sustaining, New Zealand, assessment

Sustaining professional development: rhetoric or reality?

INTRODUCTION

Investing time and resources into professional development is based on the premise

that an intervention will make an improvement and that the improvements will

continue. Yet the implicit processes, that of change, improvement and sustainability,

are complex and fraught with challenges. “Change in education is easy to propose,

hard to implement, and extraordinarily difficult to sustain.” (Hargreaves & Fink,

2006, p.1) Social environments demand that professionals do more and more,

embrace change and perform at higher levels with increasing levels of efficiency and

effectiveness. Such demands cannot continue, indeed cannot be sustained, ad

infinitum as they result in change-related chaos (continual states of upheaval),

dissipation of effort and direction with compulsive obsession to “do everything”,

ruthless competition, and movement away from key values. Maintaining key values is

critical to sustaining development, but what is meant by sustainability?

The Collins Dictionary and Thesaurus defines sustain[able] as, “to hold up under;

withstand; to maintain or prolong; to keep up the vitality or courage of.” While this

definition seems a simple statement the application of the notion of sustainability in

an educational setting is complex and problematic. For example, Burke, Elliott,

Lucas and Stewart (1997, p.13) argue that “the notion of sustainable social

development … remains problematical… This is due to an inherent dilemma, namely

that any intervention for change requires that an existing, relatively stable situation be

thrown out of balance, but the change cannot be sustained if the professional situation

is kept in constant turmoil.” There is a difficult tension between maintaining stability

while being flexible and adaptive to change, or in other words, balancing the demands
between enabling and constraining conditions. Hargreaves and Fink (2006), argue that

sustainability requires enrichment, preservation of richness and interconnectivity of

all life and recognition that learning lies at the heart of high-quality life. Practitioners

have a different perspective. For some participating schools in the current study,

sustainability meant continuation of previously established practices, but continuity

does not guarantee that the current or new practice is an improvement, that it has a

positive effect on learning and teaching or that the school‟s capacity for renewal is

enhanced. Providing insight, Hargreaves & Fink (2006, p. 17) define educational

sustainability as, “improvement [that] preserves and develops deep learning for all

that spreads and lasts, in ways that do no harm to and indeed create positive benefits

for others around us, now and in the future.” This paper develops the concept of

sustainability further. In the authors‟ view, sustainability necessitates a process of

questioning and reflecting on current knowledge and practice, ascertaining the value

of current practices, monitoring the implementation of any changes, and the capacity

to adapt practices to suit the culture of the organisation. Critical awareness of

research and practices beyond the organisation is integral to the process of

sustainability as effective, ongoing professional learning requires focus, coherence

and resilience under pressure. This paper identifies key dimensions of professional

development programme implementation that enables teacher learning to be sustained

in schools.

CONTEXT OF STUDY

The Assess to Learn (AToL) Professional Development Project is delivered across

New Zealand by eight providers, including six Colleges of Education and two private

providers. All providers have a director supported by a team of facilitators, some of

whom work part-time. Although there are some variations, the majority of

participating schools respond to advertisements or invitations to be involved in the

project and typically participate for two years. A range of schools are involved,

covering the variables of decile, school size, rural and urban location, state and

integrated, contributing and full primary, intermediate and secondary schools, albeit

the highest proportion of schools are primary. The focus of the project is on

professional development of teachers in assessment literacy, with four key outcomes,

to: improve student learning and achievement; shift teachers‟ knowledge and

assessment practice; develop coherence between assessment processes; practices and

systems in classrooms and in schools so that they promote better learning; and

demonstrate a culture of continuous school improvement.

METHODOLOGY

AToL has been externally evaluated since 2003, using a combination of a responsive

evaluative case study and action research design (Poskitt & Taylor, 2007). For this

particular project on sustainability, a case study research design was utilised. A case

study is an exploration of a bounded system, in which detailed data are collected. The

case study was bounded by topic and time in that schools previously involved in an

AToL contract were included. School lists from 2002 - 2005, previously supplied by

AToL providers, were accessed. A purposive sampling technique was employed,

ensuring a range of decile rating, regional location, school type, size and time since

participation in AToL (i.e. from finishing in 2002 to end of 2005). A total of 36

primary schools chose to participate, including four schools per provider (previously

nine providers). The context was exploration of sustainability of the project after the

contract had ceased, with interest focused on the effects of the project across a range
of schools, so that the information could be used to illustrate the issue of

sustainability; in effect an instrumental multi-sited case study (Creswell, 1998).

The main methodological tool used was that of expert interview, supported by

document analysis; the preferred choice for several reasons. Given the pressures and

demands on schools it was deemed least disruptive on principal or lead teacher time to

use an interview schedule and likely to result in a higher response rate than a paper-

based questionnaire. Secondly, an interview can be flexible to accommodate a

variety of circumstances and yield deeper reflective response than a questionnaire,

particularly when used in conjunction with document analysis. Guskey‟s (2002) study

(as cited in Richards, 2005) argues that teachers‟ self-reports, supported by visits to

the school and document analysis, are sources of potentially trustworthy information.

An expert (either principal, member of senior management team or lead teacher)

interview was required due to interest in effects on school-wide as well as classroom-

based practices. Some flexibility was necessary as many schools had experienced

changes in school personnel since involvement in AToL. Thirty of the interviews

were conducted face-to-face on respective school sites, the remaining six of which

were conducted by telephone due to timing and travel restrictions.

Content analysis of interview data, using a deductive approach, was conducted. Topic

coding, labelling text according to its subject, and analytical coding (coding that leads

to theory „emergence‟ and theory affirmation) were used (Richards, 2005). Coding

categories were derived predominantly from the data but also informed inductively

from literature related to change management, professional development and

leadership. Factors converged relating to continuation of professional development - a

process of developing „fuzzy generalisations‟ for the emerging theory (Bassey, 1999).

Bassey explains fuzzy generalisations as qualified generalisations that carry the idea

of possibility but no certainty. To validate the emerging theory, the data were checked

against negative theories. Popper (1963) argued the need for theoretical ideas to

produce hypotheses that are falsifiable, that no theory can be proven but a single

failure in the course of testing establishes its falsity. In the current study, where

professional development was not sustained in schools, it became evident that

„positive‟ factors ensuring continuity were absent in these schools. For example, the

presence of systematic documentation incorporated into appraisal systems was present

(positive) in the schools where professional development was sustained, and non-

existent in schools where development was not sustained. A similar pattern emerged

with other factors discussed under the results section.

RESULTS

Acknowledging that this is an exploratory study with limitations in sample size and

research tools, there are nevertheless some tentative themes contributing towards

understanding sustainable professional development: having an effective professional

development (PD) model, focusing on pedagogy (specifically teaching, learning and

assessment), understanding change processes, monitoring effects of PD on teachers

and students, recognising challenges, attending to factors ensuring continuity and

keeping up-to-date professionally. Each of these factors is discussed below.

Having an effective PD model

What constitutes effective professional development and learning has been contested

for many years as reflected in a range of transmission and training models. These
debates are acknowledged but in-depth discussion of them is beyond the scope of this

paper. The challenge is in identifying professional learning opportunities that allow

teachers to engage in effective teaching practices that result in raised achievement and

student engagement in their learning. Timperley, Fung, Wilson and Barrar (2006)

argue that any well constructed professional development experience should be

designed to promote learning. While professional development has connotations of

delivering some kind of information to teachers in order to influence practice,

professional learning implies a more internal process through which individual

teachers create and develop professional knowledge.

Speck and Knipe (2001, p. 4) succinctly define recent understanding of professional

development, pertinent to discussion in this paper:

Professional development is a lifelong collaborative learning process that

nourishes the growth of educators both as individuals and as team members to

improve their skills and abilities. The focus of professional development must

be on improving student learning. As fostered in a learner-centred

environment, professional development is embedded in the daily work of

educators; offers choices and levels of learning; builds on collaborative,

shared knowledge; employs effective teaching and assessment strategies;

expands teacher knowledge of learning and development and informs

teacher‟s daily work. It is sustained and intensive, with opportunities for

practice, collaborative application through problem-solving and action

research, mastery, coaching and leadership. Professional development

includes an evaluation of progress as it builds teacher and leadership capacity

and as it affects student learning.

The elements identified by Speck and Knipe are incorporated, to varying degrees, in

three broad types of PD model used in AToL. The most commonly used approach is

referred to here as „Model A‟. Model A worked on a sequence of facilitator input

through sharing of research and assessment practice in a staff meeting discussion,

negotiation between facilitator and teachers of an aspect to trial in the classroom,

teacher strategy implementation in the classroom, followed by another facilitator-led

staff meeting/classroom visit in which teachers were observed (e.g., on learning

intentions or success criteria) and provided with feedback from the facilitator.

Typically at PD staff meetings teachers engaged in professional reading, sharing of

practical ideas, trialled resources (e.g., layout of learning intentions/success criteria

developed in other schools for adaptation by the implementing school) and future

planning. The model is similar to that of Joyce and Showers (1995) which

demonstrated the effectiveness of professional development practices that

incorporated five elements: presentation of theory, demonstration, practice, feedback

and follow-up coaching in classrooms.

„Model B‟ differed in being based on a lead teacher model where the facilitator

worked with and through the principal and senior managers (each of whom were

typically syndicate leaders). The faciliator‟s role was that of a coach to the lead

teacher. This included training the lead teacher to carry out classroom observations

and developing their own formative assessment practices so that they could then, in

turn, support other teachers in the school. Each time the facilitator visited the school

s/he visited a teacher from each syndicate so that s/he could provide each team with

feedback, but this was more as a third party than as a party directly involved with the
teaching staff. Professional readings were supplied to the lead assessment team who

read them, highlighted relevant sections for teachers and made recommendations as to

which readings to share with the whole staff.

„Model C‟ (rarely used) involved collaboration and interaction between two

facilitators (one leading AToL and the other leading another initiative such as

literacy). The structure consisted of the facilitator working with the deputy principal

and occasionally with the principal and with the other project facilitator (cross-

collaboration); working with staff at staff meetings and occasionally in classrooms.

There were less frequent visits in the second year because schools established the

methodology in their schools and were virtually self-managing.

These models incorporated effective PD practice such as being adaptive to individual

school culture (Poskitt, 2005), utilising effective coaching and mentoring practice

(Joyce & Showers, 1995), focusing on what concerns teachers, combining

professional research reading and practical strategies (Ingvarson, Meiers & Beavis,

2005), allocating time and resources to the development, and developing teacher

collegiality through relevant professional discussions (Tollerico, 2005). Furthermore,

the process of professional development enabled teachers the time, freedom and

support from colleagues that is necessary for reflection on and developments in their

practice, and provided them with practical strategies for the classroom (Lee, 2005).

However, a key component of the models was the centrality of pedagogical

improvement.
Focusing on pedagogy (teaching, learning and assessment)

Black & Wiliam (2005) argue that talking about improving learning in classrooms is

of high interest for teachers since it is central to their professional identities. Teachers

want to be effective and to have a positive impact on student learning. “Our own

review reported [24] studies all of which showed that innovations which include

strengthening the practice of formative assessment produced significant, and often

substantial, learning gains.” (Black& Wiliam, 2005, p.224) However, their research

literature investigation showed implementation of formative assessment was limited,

requiring changes in perception of the teacher‟s role, students‟ beliefs about

themselves as learners and the learning process, the nature of the classroom dialogue

(questions asked, responses given), feedback given in relation to reference (goal) and

actual levels, and use of specific feedback to guide improvement. All of these

elements impact on effective teacher use of formative assessment, particularly when

teachers‟ theoretical understanding of pedagogy and curriculum content is limited. A

combination of theory and support in implementing practical strategies is essential for

effective professional development, because improving educator‟s knowledge and

skills is a prerequisite to improved student performance (Speck & Knipe, 2001).

The AToL professional development programme focuses on improving student

learning through the effective use of formative assessment in local school contexts

and cultures. A particular focus is placed on specifying student learning goals,

provision of feedback and the use of self and peer assessment within the context of

specific curriculum areas (frequently written language). This process occurs alongside

attention to teacher knowledge of assessment practices (inclusion of professional

reading, reflection and critical discussion), deepening understanding of curriculum

content (through discussion and use of tools such as national curriculum exemplars

and matrices, supplemented by professional reading) implementation of practice

(observation of classroom practice), reflection on their practice (through analysis of

teacher planning and classroom observational data, questioning and feedback from the

facilitator), and formulation of individual professional plans in which specific

strategies are identified for trial and implementation. Collection and analysis of

student achievement data enables teachers to understand the need for change in their

practice, to identify specific areas in need of attention and to co-construct with

facilitators, strategies to address these needs.

Interviewees reflected on what had developed or had been sustained in the way of

student learning and assessment practices since involvement in the AToL project, as

the following extracts illustrate.

“You would see children knowing what they are learning, why and where to go next
(we had not reached that stage during the AToL project). The quality of their writing
has really improved and children now think about words they are using in their
writing.” (Principal 1)

“Using learning intentions and success criteria have helped student learning.
Children have indicators written in their books and have next step learning there.
Children can talk about what they are learning, why and where they are going. They
have grown in assessing their own practice with support of the teacher, and children
have increasingly taken responsibility for their own learning and assessment.”
(Principals 2, 3, 4)

Understanding change processes

There is a vast literature on the processes and management of change, discussion of

which is outside the scope of this paper. Nevertheless, there are some fundamental

principles about the processes of change that are relevant to professional development

and therefore mentioned here. Deep or meaningful change takes time, generally

considerably longer than anticipated (Smith, Hofer, Gillespie, Solomon &Rowe,

2006; Guskey & Sparks, 1996). It takes time for people to become convinced of the

need to change, the value of changing and to feel sufficiently safe to change. Fullan

(1990) argued that there was an “implementation dip” when teachers tried new ideas

before they fully understood it or integrated the practice into their teaching and such

periods were ones of stress and anxiety for teachers. Furthermore, Senge, Kleiner,

Roberts, Toss, Roth, & Smith, 1999 (p.250) argue that “learning, by definition,

implies a willingness to be uncertain, and to figure things out as you go along.” Only

in safety will people be willing to risk abandoning secure ways of doing things and

learning new ways. A climate of trust and safety emerges when there are perceived

opportunities for choice, openness, and sharing of responsibility. Effective

professional development necessitates a prevailing culture of trust, collegiality and

risk-taking; all within a climate of support (Smith et al., 2006). Change is not easy –

“individual teacher change sometimes leads to new challenges unless teachers and

administrators work together to discuss consistency of goals and curriculum across

the programme” (Smith et al., 2006, p.23).

Principals and senior managers who were interviewed in this study provided the

following reflective comments about the implementation of change:

“You need a philosophy that staff change takes time. Take small steps. Be clear about
the expectations and question whether it is what we want and communicate what is
achieved. Teachers need to use their professional judgement. Don‟t get rigid about
new initiatives, move slowly and teachers will come on board. Develop a philosophy
of issues being our problem and what we will do to solve it – not isolating the teacher
with a problem. When things are down the teachers need to know the principal and
Board of Trustees will support them and work through the issues.” (Principal 1)

“Teachers need time to share good practice and to talk about what is working.
Celebrate successes. Timing has to be perfect to implement changes. AToL fitted well
with changes to the NZ curriculum. Link the new initiative to something else to make
the connections smoother. It is important to have release time. The principal
released teachers to work on their ideas and gave teachers time to do it well, to talk
and to finish things.” (Lead teacher 1)

“Successful implementation is dependent on the staff culture and the way the
facilitator works. Teachers need to feel safe to try new things (whilst also giving
some other teachers “a hurry along”). Subtle peer pressure is needed with teachers
to implement the changes and if they have to report back at the next staff meeting they
cannot avoid coming with samples of student work. It is a good strategy for those
teachers who are tardy. It is easy to maintain momentum when people see value in
the project. A formative assessment philosophy supports learning – it is such a sound
theory. Another important component is developing a good relationship with the
facilitator – helping to attune the facilitator to teachers who appear to agree but in
the classroom do not put it into practice. Having a supportive facilitator helps the
principal and gives the principal courage to persist with changes. The principal often
loads the gun but takes the flack from teachers resisting change.” (Principal 25)

Monitoring effects of professional development on teachers and students

It is important to establish mechanisms for monitoring the effects of professional

development on teachers and students for several reasons. Firstly, as Senge et al.

(1999, p.47) state, “People‟s enthusiasm and willingness to commit themselves

naturally increase when they realize personal results from a change initiative; this in

turn reinforces their investment and leads to further learning.” Secondly,

continuous improvement in schools must involve an ongoing cycle of inquiry

that looks at data and the professional development programme to determine if

progress is being made. Inquiry into what is working or not working in the PD

programme encourages a process of ongoing feedback. Adjustments can be

made to meet the needs of the teachers as they learn new skills and practice

them in the classroom. Through the evaluation process, teachers learn to

examine their teaching, reflect on practice, try new practices, and evaluate

their results based on student achievement. (Speck & Knipe, 2001, p. 200).

Thirdly, assurance is needed that the time and effort devoted to trying new ways of

operating are resulting in improved outcomes for students.

AToL schools that were monitoring effects of the professional development on

teachers and students integrated the professional development into their school–wide

data collection and analysis systems, included related teacher goals in their personal

professional plans and appraisal systems (to ensure implementation), and supported

these goals with curriculum folders, consistent classroom procedures, particular

strategies and formats for reporting to parents, and creating student expectations in

regard to assessment procedures and information. Such procedural techniques

enabled principals to monitor changes, as indicated in the following interview

extracts:

“We saw increased effective teaching and learning (we compared samples of student
work over time and the children could articulate how they got there); results from
school-wide assessments and standardised tests showed increased achievement”.
(Principal 21)

“We use the [national curriculum exemplar] matrix to report to the Board of Trustees
and now have children operating at level three in writing (compared with no children
operating at level three in 2002). We now have 16/117 children working above our
expectations. The senior team have analysed deeper features in writing to focus their
teaching and learning. We looked at the data and identified language features they
needed to work on and have accordingly adjusted out planning and teaching”.
(Principal 28)

“We have incorporated AToL into our appraisal systems to ensure that teachers keep
focused on learning intentions and specific feedback. We incorporated learning
intentions into all literacy, numeracy and topic areas and they are displayed on the
whiteboard for children to view. Exemplars are used as an assessment method in
each syndicate; all procedures, like highlighters and 2 stars/1 wish are used
consistently throughout the school. We have provided more specific explanation to
each parent and provided samples of work for them to view their child‟s progress
since the project.” ( Lead Teacher 1)

Recognising challenges

Timing, pace and depth of change are dependent on receptivity to, and fertile

conditions for, change as well as recognition of situational factors. The flexibility of

the AToL project and its capacity to adapt to particular school conditions enabled it to

accommodate varying human needs and consequently to continue in most of the

schools where researchers interviewed. For example, staff changes were experienced

by many schools we visited, yet the majority of schools continued and renewed at

least some AToL practices in their schools. Sustaining development was difficult

however when the principal, lead teacher or sufficient proportions of staff left the

school, particularly where documentation or systems were poorly developed. This

was the case for a low proportion of schools, involved in AToL up to four years

previously. In these schools the proportion of staff changes and curriculum demands

were too great and they moved on to other projects.

“Because the principal is the only person remaining at the school since the project
finished, we have not continued much. The new teachers did not have ownership of
AToL and we have focused our efforts on numeracy since then.” (Principal 16)

Other challenges encountered related to a change of facilitator, ineffective

relationship between the facilitator and principal or lead teacher, resistant staff

culture, perceptions of work overload or perceptions of irrelevance of the project to

teacher practice.

Attending to factors ensuring continuity and keeping up-to-date professionally

Schools in which AToL continued, regardless of teacher turnover, had attended to

staff culture and organisational systems. Folders of the curriculum development were

distributed and could be referred to by all staff (particularly for sharing with new

teachers to provide a background and rationale for existing practices), buddy systems‟

whereby any teachers new to the school were paired with an „existing‟ teacher who

worked together to explain, model, observe and provide feedback about AToL,

translation of AToL into other curriculum areas (many schools began with written

language) but later incorporated formative assessment practices into areas such as

mathematics and topic work, periodic staff meetings where the focus was on AToL
and sharing of teacher practice of continued development (particularly successful

when utilising a „walk-around meeting‟ – where the whole staff walk around each

classroom and the teacher briefly shows and explains an aspect s/he has incorporated

into the classroom programme). This „walk-around meeting‟ process acknowledges

ongoing efforts of staff and enables sharing of ideas and strategies as well as

development of consistent practice in the school. Periodic communication with the

facilitator or „cluster‟ schools who were involved in the AToL project enabled a focus

to be maintained and provision for sharing new ideas. Finally, following AToL with

another professional development project to consolidate the principles of formative

assessment contributed to sustainability. For example, many of the schools moved

into the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) or literacy contract and

found the continuity beneficial in terms of the focus on effective learning and

teaching strategies

“We have translated that learning into numeracy since that period, and with being in
the ICT contract, all our records are now digitised into MUSAC Student Manager,
using asTTle, PATs, and we triangulate the data. Classroom Manager was set up to
answer questions we want answered and it is the source of information from which we
write reports and allocate student rewards. We now have a one way report, evidence-
based portfolios, three-way conferencing and are now working towards an integrated
curriculum.” (Principal 15)

“School-wide, we have used AToL practices in all we do. Learning intentions are
used in each curriculum area even though in the contract we did it only in specific
language areas. I could see and hear teachers translating the principles to other
curriculum areas. Through the school newsletter we outlined to the community how
classroom practice was altering. We encouraged parents to ask their children what
feedback they got from the teacher and what personally they were learning to do
better. At the interviews we showed parents the assessment sheets (very detailed
learning intentions and success criteria and children showed how their work met
those goals.” (Principal 14)

“We reported to the BOT each year on our professional development in AToL and
shared a powerpoint presentation with parents to inform them of changes in our
assessment procedures. We informed them about the purpose and use of highlighters
on children‟s work, the greater emphasis on oral than written feedback to children
and the feedback that we sought from parents about their children‟s work.” (Lead
teacher 1)

“We developed Curriculum Delivery Folders that explain and provide examples of
expectations of learning intentions, success criteria and specific feedback for new
teachers. Modelling by teachers such as sharing good examples of planning and what
doing in classroom at our „walk and talk‟ staff meetings when we walk around the
classrooms for sharing time also helped new staff. Our intention in term 3 is to have
all teachers using 2-3 strategies in the classroom – pick up ideas from other teachers
and by term 4 all teachers will be using multiple strategies in AToL.” (Principal 29)

IMPLICATIONS FOR SUSTAINING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

PROJECTS IN SCHOOLS

There are various interpretations and understandings in relation to sustaining change.

Sustaining change assumes that change is embedded, yet many writers argue that deep

change takes considerable time to embed (for example, Guskey & Sparks, 1996;

Senge et al., 1999), a range of attributes need to be acquired, such as new knowledge,

skills, attitudes and dispositions; and organisational culture, structures and processes

need to evolve to support the changes otherwise people tend to revert to former ways

of operating. Furthermore, to ensure the changes are sustained, conscious efforts are

required to not only keep the new ways going but also to respond appropriately to

stimulus to keep adapting. If an organisation continues the newly acquired practices

in a rigid manner, then all the organisation has achieved is the adoption of another

way of operating, without developing a culture of continuous improvement. Only in

cultures of continuous improvement can deep, sustaining change occur. Further

research is required to “test” the applicability of the proposed approach to

sustainability, for example schools involved in other professional development

initiatives such as curriculum-based projects, schools where their approach is school-

based and not supported by external funding and in countries beyond New Zealand.

Nevertheless, from this exploratory study of New Zealand schools, it appears that
sustainability of professional development in schools requires a coherent approach

that uses an effective professional development model, focuses on pedagogy

(teaching, learning, assessment), understands change processes, monitors effects of

PD on teachers and students, recognises challenges, and attends to theoretical and

practical factors contributing to continuity and keeping up-to-date professionally.

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