Moving toward integrated teacher professional learning? A case study of a government-funded year-long programme for health and physical education teachers

Abstract

This paper focuses on teacher professional learning (TPL) and examines Australian health and physical education (HPE) teachers’ experiences of a year-long, government-funded professional learning programme called the Teaching Excellence Programme (TEP). More specifically, it responds to the question: what features of the TEP did HPE teachers view as most valuable for their TPL and practice? Data consisted of: (i) semi-structured interviews with teachers (n = 7); (ii) TEP documents; and (iii) field notes collected via participant observation. Findings highlighted features of the TEP that the teachers felt were most valuable for their professional learning, namely, it: (a) created space for knowledge construction and sharing across disciplines, sectors, and regions; (b) was an attractive space created specifically for teachers; (c) provided a context and permission for year-long, purposeful TPL; (d) allowed for engagement with other experts; (e) positioned teachers as active learners in context; (f) embedded practitioner inquiry as a central feature; and (g) focused on developing teacher ‘dispositions’ that supported reflection and guided learning. Findings also reflected possible improvements for the TEP. The discussion suggests that, for decades, TPL scholarship has been littered with dichotomies (e.g. formal vs. informal), but our findings suggest that the TEP went some way to challenging historically rooted, unproductive dichotomous thinking and practice. Indeed, we argue that the TEP represented ‘integrated TPL’: that is, TPL that is sustained and integrates a strategically aligned spectrum of epistemologies, theories, concepts and pedagogical approaches.