Shared Learning, Different Transformations: Teachers’ Professional Learning Across Classroom Contexts

Shared professional learning opportunities can result in diverse teaching practices; however, the mechanisms underlying these variations remain insufficiently understood. This qualitative multiple case study investigated how three experienced first-grade teachers continued their professional learning after participating in the same cohort of Indonesia’s Teacher Professional Education Program (Pendidikan Profesi Guru, PPG). The teachers worked in distinct contexts: an urban public school, an inclusive bilingual school, and a rural public school. Data sources included program recordings and materials, nine semi-structured interviews, sixteen classroom observations, field notes, instructional artifacts, and selected student work. Analysis was conducted iteratively at both within-case and cross-case levels, employing inquiry, sense-making, ecological agency, and professional judgment as complementary analytical frameworks. The findings identified three distinct pathways: assessment-informed, resource-adaptive literacy instruction; refinement of an established repertoire of inclusive teaching practices; and expansion of pedagogical practice through experimentation and scaffolding. In each case, teachers interpreted shared resources through their own experience, educational objectives, classroom evidence, and the specific opportunities and constraints encountered. Decisions included maintaining, modifying, combining, substituting, or, in some instances, not adopting an approach. Some modifications were partial, and classroom responses varied. This study offers a processual account of principled adaptation and shows how shared learning resources take on different meanings and applications through ongoing engagement with practice. Teacher education and subsequent support should provide increased opportunities to examine student evidence, discuss diverse teaching approaches, and articulate the rationale behind classroom decisions.