Growing connections – the connected professional

Abstract

This article reviews research relating to the concept of ‘the professional’ then considers ‘the teaching professional’ and in particular the ‘post-compulsory education (PCE) teaching professional’ in more depth. Recent positive models of the teaching professional are analysed, including the expansive professional and the democratic professional, and a new model from the author’s research is proposed entitled the ‘connected professional’. This draws together a number of key positive components from other models, but also includes a strategy for enacting the model called ‘growing connections’. This is argued to offer a potentially more realisable goal for the future of PCE teaching professionals. The article concludes by offering a set of key characteristics of the PCE teaching professional and calls for adoption of the models offered.

Keywords:

• further education
• post-compulsory education
• teaching and learning
• professionalism
• teacher development
• teacher training
• teacher education
• professional development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.