Excellence is not an island: team-based professional development in Higher Education

Abstract

This paper describes and analyses teacher professional development actions and learning within the context of Higher Education in a Spanish public university. Seven teachers from different areas of knowledge and with different levels of teaching experience in the university participated in the study. Individual class journals were interpreted along with recordings of team sessions to investigate the teaching actions designed with regard to the teaching-learning process over the course of four academic years. Team-based teacher professional development was viewed as a collaborative rather than an individual process. Its impact was analysed following the model of domains developed by Clarke and Hollingsworth (2002): personal (conceptions of teaching), practical (actions carried out), external (resources and context), and consequences (learning outcomes for the students). The results signalled changes in the four domains derived from deliberate and regulated processes of action and reflection. On account of the decisive impact of professional development, there is evidence of: (1) mutual influence between faculty staff, students, and social organisations, which either fosters or inhibits professional improvement; (2) students’ learning outcomes, emotions, and motivations. External conditions, particularly time constraints and institutional rigidity, on the contrary, acted as barriers to professional development