Action Research and Teachers’ Professional Development: Examples and Reflections

Teacher professional development had received a growing interest in the past decades due to their importance in improving teachers' knowledge, skills and values. There are various approaches and types of teachers' professional development. This paper begins by discussing the definition, characteristics and models of teachers’ professional development. Then it outlines some ideas related to teacher professional learning communities (PLCs), communities of practice (CoPs), mentoring and coaching. Next, the paper focuses on action research as one of the widely used approaches in both research and teacher professional development. The potential benefits of action research in building teachers’ professional capacity is presented next. The paper concludes with a discussion about the implications of utilizing action research in the educational development program for school principals in Bahrain Teachers College.