Abstract ‘Professional development’ has become a password to a variety of activities ranging from self‐directed experimentation in the classroom to full‐blown research projects with peers and, occasionally, with external sources of expertise. From its initial, more restrictive and individual sense of in‐service training, it has taken on institutional, even systemic dimensions, and has been identified as a pre‐condition for thorough‐going school reform. Even in its present form, however, the concept is problematic. The claim is made here that (a) it does not take into account the more ‘artisan’ or ‘craft‐centered’ nature of work in the classroom, (b) that it is overly school‐centered, and (c) that it under‐estimates the real gradient of instructional change. A research‐based, cross‐school alternative for reflection and change is proposed, with a focus on bridging the gap between peer exchanges, the interventions of external resource people, and the greater likelihood of actual change at the classroom level.
Michael Huberman (Sun,) studied this question.