Professional learning for praxis development: reflections

ABSTRACT

Praxis development remains invisible in many discussions of professional learning because professional educators take praxis development for granted as an indissoluble part of education and educational work. This special issue provides new insights into professional learning for praxis development, and about the conditions that enable and constrain the development of educational and social practices through professional learning initiatives. In the lead article in this special issue, Salo, Francisco and Olin Almqvist outline key features of professional learning for praxis development, which are extended in the later article by Francisco, Forssten Seiser and Olin Almqvist. Together, these important features are: power and solidarity, trust, recognition, agency, reflection, collaboration, and time. These are key ideas to be kept in mind in research and practice in professional learning, and in the organisation and administration of professional learning initiatives.

KEYWORDS:

• Professional learning
• praxis development
• critical praxis

This special issue is entitled ‘Professional learning for praxis development’. While many of the articles in the issue do not mention praxis at all, or only in passing, I will suggest that they do address what the editors – Petri Salo, Susanne Francisco and Anette Olin Almqvist – have in mind about praxis and praxis development, as they describe it in their opening article for the volume. All of the articles explicitly address professional learning (and distinguish it from professional development, and in one case, from everyday learning). They also see beyond individual professional learning to explore how it happens collectively, for groups, and, in the studies reported here, collaboratively. The articles all also recognise that professional learning extends beyond the development of teachers’ technical (e.g. pedagogical) skills to encompass the development of their capacities for practical deliberation – that is, deliberation about the most appropriate, wisest, courses of action to take under the historical circumstances in which people find themselves, in the best interests of the individuals involved and in pursuit of the good for humankind. And this practical deliberation opens the door to a critical awareness of the consequences of their actions – that, for better or worse, their actions always make histories. As Mahon et al. (2020) eloquently argued, these technical, practical, and critical capabilities can be harnessed together in critical praxis, transforming existing or proposed courses of action to avoid, overcome, or ameliorate the untoward consequences of people’s actions.

The editors of the special issue Salo, Francisco and Olin Almqvist (2024), are the authors of the first article in the collection, Understanding professional learning in and for practice. It is largely conceptual in character, mapping the field of professional learning and proposing a framework for exploring professional learning. It begins by reviewing relevant literature, and identifying and highlighting key ideas and themes. It then reframes professional learning in terms of practice and practice theory (particularly the theory of practice architectures; Kemmis et al. 2014, Kemmis 2022). By focusing on the social dimension of professional learning and development, the authors make a distinctive contribution to the literature of professional learning and development. They argue that the social aspect of practices is crucial for successful professional learning in educational settings, and that this social aspect is crucial in praxis development. In particular, the authors explain and emphasise the roles played by power and solidarity, trust, recognition, and agency in powerful professional learning and praxis development. In their summary and conclusions, they suggest that, because it harnesses these elements together, action research is a powerful vehicle for professional learning and development.

The article by Yngve Antonsen, Jessica Aspfors and Gregor Maxwell (2024), Early career teacher’s role in school development and professional learning in Norwegian primary and secondary schools, reports an empirical study of professional learning in school settings in Norway. It is a five-year follow-up study of 26 graduates of a five-year master’s programme in teacher education that emphasised action research and enquiry by teachers investigating their own teaching practices. In their schools, these teachers engaged in development work in relation to (top-down) curriculum renewal in Norwegian schools, and (bottom-up) collaborative enquiry in the interests of site-based school development. The researchers identified three different kinds of trust exhibited by the teachers in their work five years after graduating from the course: ‘pre-contractual trust’ (based on shared understandings and expectations), ‘relational trust’ (grounded in interpersonal lifeworld relations between participants), and ‘structural trust’ (which is crystallised into specialist roles, and rules and policies at various organisational levels from the school to the municipality and beyond). The authors also identified four different kinds of roles adopted by teachers in the collaborative work in these school developments: creators (who initiated development activities and projects with colleagues), translators (who translated external, top-down proposals for change into practice in their schools and classrooms), drivers (who took formal roles in leading and supporting collegial change initiatives), and passengers (who became passive in the implementation of top-down initiatives when confronted by too many initiatives or when there was not enough time for deep, long-term explorations of practice). This last finding became a key conclusion from the study: that overburdening teachers with too many top-down school development initiatives renders them passive about implementing the initiatives and critical about the unrealistic expectations of management. The authors argue that, instead, teachers want to participate in professional learning through collaborative action research that is grounded in relational trust among colleagues, and that aims for worthwhile, sustainable transformations in educational practice – what might reasonably be called sustainable praxis development. One might conclude, then, that although the authors don’t explicitly mention praxis or praxis development, there is little doubt that many of the teachers who participated in this study were committed to the development of educational praxis in their schools.

Rosalie Goldsmith and Franziska Trede, in their article Professional learning in engineering internships: What do supervisors learn from their student supervision practices? similarly make no explicit mention of praxis or praxis development. Nevertheless, their conclusions urge industry supervisors of engineering student interns to develop ‘more purposeful, relational and values-based learning practices in supervisor-student interactions’. This sounds as though the researchers are inviting industry supervisors to aim for praxis in their supervision practices. The researchers collected interview and survey evidence from 29 industry supervisors of engineering interns. The evidence suggested that most supervisors had a largely technical view of managing the work of interns rather than a practical view of nurturing their work, or a wider critical view of interns’ development in the work, the engineering profession, and the discipline. Adopting a critical perspective, the researchers argue, encourage supervisors to embrace professional learning about (a) how their own supervisory practices might be developed, and (b) how their professional engineering work – and the work of their profession – might be developed. The current practices of most supervisors in this study didn’t embrace this wider critical perspective, but the researchers concluded that, if they did, it could contribute to the supervisors’ own development as supervisors, and contribute to the development of their professional field. While the researchers didn’t mention it explicitly, what they are advocating sounds a lot like the development of industry supervisors’ praxis in their supervision and in other aspects of their professional work.

Praxis and praxis development are also not explicitly mentioned in the body of article Professional learning of academics enacting Work Integrated Learning by Oriana Price and Amanda Lizier. The authors deploy the notion of learning as ‘coming to practice differently’ (Kemmis 2021) in their study, which analysed evidence from interviews with 10 academics across two Australian universities, from a range of different fields (e.g. engineering, international studies, academic development) and levels of teaching (undergraduate and graduate). The article reveals some of the practice architectures that enabled and constrained academics’ development of work integrated learning (WIL) in their teaching in these two universities. In both universities, institutional policies required the introduction of WIL in many subjects, but Price and Lizier’s (2024) research reveals that the universities did not provide adequate conditions for academics to undertake the additional work required. The authors deployed one framework for understanding the kind of academic development work involved – distinguishing professional development, professional learning, and everyday learning – a but found this taxonomy didn’t reveal much about what was going on in relation to WIL policies and practice. Indeed, much of the professional learning they identified turned out to be everyday learning by academics as they introduced WIL to their subjects. The theory of practice architectures was more revealing as a framework for exploring WIL policies and practices in these sites. The theory helped to identify the kinds of conditions that needed to be changed in these universities, including (e.g.) changes to teaching and learning and promotion policies that currently require academics to include WIL in their teaching, and improving material conditions in the sites that work against implementation of the WIL policies, for example to allocate adequate time for developing WIL in subjects. Price and Lizier (2024) conclude by drawing attention to the individual and collective agency that needs to be harnessed for professional learning to have significant impacts in university policies (e.g. for teaching and learning, and for promotion) and in university teachers’ practices like WIL. This, too, sounds like an appeal for the development of praxis, not only in practices of university teaching, but also in practices of university administration.

Ian Hardy’s (2024) article, Schools, data and teachers’ learning: Insights of an experienced educator, focuses on the tensions experienced by a very experienced teacher, Meriam, as she negotiates a path between, on the one hand, the organisational professionalism demanded by neoliberal management, monitoring, and accountability measures prevalent in schools and school systems, and, on the other, the occupational professionalism that is manifested in teachers’ professional judgement and autonomy. This occupational professionalism is evident, for example, in teachers’ individual and collective efforts at self-development. Teachers’ occupational professionalism, which attends closely to (e.g.) students, their learning, and their circumstances, is threatened by the organisational professionalism imposed on teachers and schools by education authorities in the form of standardised, ‘datafied’ measures of (e.g.) student achievement. Meriam eloquently articulates how these tensions are experienced in teachers’ and students’ practices, even in the early years of schooling. Hardy barely mentions praxis or praxis development, but he does show how occupational professionalism is nevertheless present and sustained in Meriam’s work life, and how it informs her practice and the ways she attends to and facilitates the learning of all her students, despite their varied and sometimes challenging circumstances. This can be interpreted as showing that Meriam is indeed committed to educational praxis and to her own praxis development.

In their article, Being, becoming and sustaining: Learning professional learning in teacher education, Gunilla Karlberg-Granlund and Annika Pastuhov (2024) mention ‘praxis’ only once (and praxis development not at all), in the context of teachers developing a ‘praxis stance’, as advocated by Smith (2008). They argue for the development of prospective teachers’ capacities for individual self-reflection and for collective professional dialogue (particularly in ‘collegium’ groups constituted for the purpose). Their double focus on self-reflection and dialogue may reasonably be interpreted as a commitment to developing prospective teachers’ capacities for praxis development. And the prospective teachers they studied did indeed develop these capacities, and demonstrate growing confidence in their professional capacities as educators.

In their article, Lill Langelotz and Dennis Beach (2024) address the topic Global education reform and the Swedish CPD market: Restricted professional learning and the power of ideology. They mention praxis twice in the context of teachers’ professionalism, defining praxis as “teachers’ socially and politically informed moral and ethical actions that contribute to historical changes that aim to do ‘good’ in relation to the social, moral, and political purpose of education”. In their research, they conducted interviews with principals and records of invoices for continuing professional development initiatives in schools. Their analysis explores tensions between managerial and democratic perspectives in professional development and learning for teachers. Their findings show how the predominant managerial discourses of Swedish state and municipal agencies (and some school principals) limit discourses of, and opportunities for, teachers’ praxis in the form of more democratic professional learning undertaken by teachers collectively – collegial research initiatives for school-based education development.

‘Praxis’, mostly in the phrase ‘praxis development’, is mentioned at least 19 times in the body of the article Action Research as professional learning in practice by Susanne Francisco, Anette Forssten Seiser and Anette Olin Almqvist (Francisco and Olin Almqvist are two of the three editors of the special issue). The authors explicitly foreground praxis development as a focus of interest in their research. The article presents two cases, one of Swedish school leaders collaborating in action research studies in a formal course on school principalship, and one of Australian vocational education and training teachers collaborating in action research to improve their own teaching, and especially their capacities to recognise and respond to their learners’ needs. The primary evidence in both cases consists of (transcribed) interviews with the participants in the action research initiatives. The research uses the framework introduced in the lead article of the special issue (Understanding professional learning in and for practice by Salo, Francisco & Olin Almqvist (2024)) to interpret the conditions for praxis development in the two cases, and finds the framework helpful in interpreting what supported the teachers’ learning through their action research work. As mentioned earlier, the five key elements in the framework are: time; power and solidarity; trust; recognition; and agency; to which the authors of this study add two more: reflection and collaboration. The authors note that developing relational trust is a strong enabling condition for teachers’ professional learning through collaborative action research, and also note the importance of time allocated for, and actually committed to, the action research work as a further important enabling condition for these teachers’ professional learning. In this article, professional learning for praxis development is clearly in the foreground.

Beverley Goldshaft and Ela Sjølie (2024) are the authors of the article, Supporting communicative learning spaces: an exploration of an observation-grounded mentoring framework for tripartite conversations in student teachers’ practicum. ‘Praxis’ and ‘praxis development’ do not appear in the text of the article (though, as in other contributions to the special issue, ‘Praxis’ appears in the titles of several sources referred to in the text). The study shows how the use of an Observation-grounded Mentoring Framework (OMF) – a form completed by student teachers before a practicum and used to summarise observations of the experience afterwards – created a common language for, and diminished the power asymmetry between, the student teachers, school-based teacher mentors, and university mentors who visited schools to observe the student teachers at work. Teacher mentors and university staff who were more experienced in mentoring made less use of the forms than ones who were less experienced, instead using their own forms of observation notes. But the general effect was to help establish common ground, relational trust, and more democratic social relationships between the people involved. Although the authors do not make this point explicitly, one might add that the use of the OMF modelled a form of praxis development that student teachers might take with them into their future careers, encouraging them to undertake professional learning in collaboration with their peers.

The final article in the collection is Learning leading – responsiveness in leading professional learning, by Veronica Sülau, Jaana Nehez and Anette Olin Almqvist (2024). In this article, praxis and praxis development are once again in the foreground. The article shows how professional development leaders’ practices interconnect with teacher leaders’ practices in an action research-based programme of collegial professional development facilitated by professional developers from a Swedish municipality’s education office. Using the theory of practice architectures (Kemmis et al. 2014, Kemmis 2022), the authors show how the sayings, doings, and relatings of professional development leaders and teacher leaders interconnect as they participate together in their own professional learning. The authors suggest that these interconnections reveal four kinds of responsiveness in the practices of professional development leaders and teacher leaders: to ideas of successful leading, to experiences and observations of leading practices, to teacher leaders’ understanding and to own leading practices. The article explores how professional learning practices come to have a lasting impact in the form of a long-term commitment to collegial praxis development among teacher leaders and professional development leaders.

Only four of the 10 articles in this collection explicitly mention praxis development, which may seem odd in an issue specifically devoted to ‘professional learning for praxis development’. How could it be that praxis development has receded from the foreground in most of these articles? Its invisibility, I think, is a measure of its taken-for-granted-ness by professional educators, whether they are facilitators of or participants in professional learning initiatives. In my comments on the articles, I have tried to show, however, that, where it is absent, the notion of praxis development is nevertheless implicit in what these authors have to say about professional development. That is, these authors are people committed to forms of professional development that go beyond technical skills development and the development of practical deliberation and action to include collective world-changing, for example through critical collaborative action research (and other) initiatives in schools and other education settings. When the authors highlight such features as participants’ individual and collective agency, participants’ preference for collaboration in processes of professional learning, and notions of the wider social, professional, and institutional purposes for (and consequences of) professional learning in the studies they report in this special issue, they are pointing in the direction of praxis development.

In the lead article for the collection, Salo, Francisco and Olin Almqvist (2024) argue that the social aspect of professional learning is especially important, identifying four things in particular: power and solidarity, trust, recognition, and agency. I re-read the articles with these elements in mind, and concluded that all four are mentioned, although not necessarily by the names Salo, Francisco and Olin Almqvist (2024) gave them. In some articles, they are present and noted; in other articles, one or more of the elements are noted as being absent or inadequate (to the detriment of the particular professional learning initiative being studied); and in some articles, the authors note that some of the people involved in the initiatives (e.g. administrators or managers) have not recognised the importance of some of the elements (e.g. power and solidarity, or trust).

In their article, Francisco, Forssten Seiser, and Olin Almqvist (2024) identified reflection and collaboration as additional social elements that could extend the conceptual framework for professional learning offered by Salo, Francisco and Olin Almqvist (2024) in the lead article. Francisco, Forssten Seiser, and Olin Almqvist (2024) also stress the importance of the time available for participation in professional learning initiatives – both the time allocated by managers for professional learning initiatives and the time participants actually gave to participating in the initiatives. My reading leads me to the conclusion that these additional three elements (reflection, collaboration, and time) are also noted by the authors of all or most of the other articles in the collection.

Combining the Salo et al. initial list of key elements with the additional elements identified by Francisco et al. yields the following as key contributors to effective and powerful professional learning: power and solidarity, trust, recognition, and agency, reflection, collaboration, and time. It seems to me that these are also key elements of praxis development.

To return to my earlier theme, I think the apparent invisibility of praxis development in many discussions of professional learning is because professional educators do, indeed, take praxis development for granted as an indissoluble part of education and educational work. For example, in their article (this issue) on professional discourses underpinning continuing professional development, Langelotz and Beach (2024) follow Mahon et al. (2019) to describe praxis as “teachers’ socially and politically informed moral and ethical actions that contribute to historical changes that aim to do ‘good’ in relation to the social, moral, and political purpose of education”. They see praxis as a key aspect of teachers’ professionalism, and as unfolding in history, and thus, one might conclude, as a key aspect of teachers’ continuing praxis development. On this view, praxis and praxis development are simply what teachers do as professional educators, both in their educational work and in their own (individual and collective self-education in) their continuing professional learning.

Perhaps this is why Goldsmith and Trede (2024) find a kind of disjunction in the work of engineers who are industry supervisors of undergraduate engineering students: they sometimes see the interns simply as employees, there to do a job, rather than as people engaged in learning to be professional engineers; and most see themselves as supervisors of engineering work rather than (also) as supervisors of interns’ work of learning to be engineers. While I’m pretty sure that these supervisors have notions of (what I would call) professional praxis in engineering, Goldsmith and Trede suggest that they do not seem, in general, to have developed a parallel sense of educational praxis in their educational work as supervisors of interns entering their field.

In the other studies reported in this issue, by contrast, the core participants are professional educators (or prospective professional educators) and thus, it seems to me, they take for granted the overarching double purpose of education – learning to live well in worlds worth living in (Reimer et al. 2023). The pursuit of this double purpose is one way of expressing professional educators’ enduring commitment to praxis development, for themselves, as well as for their colleagues, their students, and the professional and other communities they serve.

As my brief survey of the articles in this special issue suggests, readers will discover much in these pages about professional learning for praxis development, and about the conditions that enable and constrain the development of educational and social practices through professional learning initiatives. I also hope that, in their research, their practice, and in their organisation and administration of professional learning initiatives, readers will continue to attend to the importance of the features of professional learning for praxis development identified by Salo, Francisco and Olin Almqvist (2024) and extended by Francisco, Forssten Seiser and Olin Almqvist in this issue: power and solidarity, trust, recognition, agency, reflection, collaboration, and time.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).