What makes professional learning meaningful? educators’ sense making of professional development experiences

Professional learning research has increasingly recognised that educator learning extends beyond formal professional development activities. Comparatively less attention, however, has been devoted to how educators determine that professional experiences constitute meaningful professional learning. This qualitative study examined how 23 university educators understood meaningful professional learning within an international higher education context. Data were generated through metaphor elicitation, critical professional learning incident narratives, and a comparative ranking activity, and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis informed by a sense making perspective. The findings indicate that meaningful professional learning emerged through the reconstruction of professional understanding, was continually reinterpreted through subsequent experience, shaped educators’ professional judgement, and developed across interconnected rather than isolated experiences. The study contributes to professional learning research by shifting attention from the characteristics of professional development activities to the interpretive processes through which educators recognise and construct professional significance.