TITLE:
Lifelong Professional Development and Learning Communities in Contemporary Schools: Views of Primary School Teachers
AUTHORS:
Nikolaos Alexopoulos, Haralampos Dimas
KEYWORDS:
Professional Learning Communities, Teachers’ Professional Development, School Leadership, School Principal, Lifelong Learning
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.14 No.13,
December
27,
2023
ABSTRACT: According to the literature and to international
politics, contemporary societies should learn how to respond immediately to
crises in the environment, the economy, in health etc., as well as to the rapid
socio-economic, demographic and technological developments on a global level.
Education has been placed at the center of this effort and teachers are at the
forefront. Within this context, educational administration promotes teachers’
lifelong Professional Development (PD), the
transformation of school units into Professional Lear- ning Communities (PLCs) and the strengthening of
school principals’ capacity for pedagogical leadership. The Greek educational
policy and school administration, having been formulated by long-standing and
deep-rooted centralized and bureaucratic procedures, has recently begun a
systematic effort to respond to the above international calls without much
success. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the extent to which efforts
for Greek schools to become learning
communities that support teachers’ lifelong PD have been successful and how
teachers, as recipients of these changes, perceive them. The research
results mainly showed that schools function to a moderate degree as PLCs while
school principals have moderately developed the appropriate leadership
practices which would support teachers’ PD through PLCs. The findings of the
study highlight the importance of the collaborative, supportive and pedagogical
role of school principals, as well as the need for reforms (e.g. in the design
and implementation of the school curriculum and school staffing strategy) and
for establishing support for learning networks in schools.