The complexity of teacher professional growth – unravelling threads of purpose, opportunity and response

ABSTRACT

This article utilises complexity thinking to further develop a heuristic model for teacher professional growth as a continuous, recursive and adaptive process. Conversations with six case teachers are drawn upon in a phenomenographic study, seeking variation in ways of experiencing learning and development, together comprising professional growth. Distinctions and conjunctions between learning and development are explored, and an attempt is made to unravel the entangled threads of purpose, opportunity and response heard in teacher accounts. These threads, unique in each case, collectively form categories of description as a possibility space for professional growth. This cannot fully capture the complexity of teacher learning and development but can be utilised and expanded to interpret past experiences and project future potential, within organisational contexts and external conditions. The process of professional growth is considered as one of complicity, whereby those involved and the situations they inhabit are mutually implicated in continual and tangible change.

KEYWORDS:

• Professional growth
• teacher learning
• teacher development
• complexity thinking
• complicity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.