How and what teachers learn: a shifting perspective

We explore our efforts to create a conceptual framework to describe and analyse the challenges around preparing teachers to create, sustain, and educate in a ‘community of learners’. In particular, we offer a new frame for conceptualizing teacher learning and development within communities and contexts. This conception allows us to understand the variety of ways in which teachers respond in the process of learning to teach in the manner described by the ‘Fostering a Community of Learners’ (FCL) programme. The model illustrates the ongoing interaction among individual student and teacher learning, institutional or programme learning, and the characteristics of the policy environment critical to the success of theory‐intensive reform efforts such as FCL.