How Teachers Experience Learning and Change: A Phenomenographic Study of Internationalized Teacher Professional Development

Abstract

This article explores the internationalization of teacher professional development by investigating the experiences of teachers who have undergone an internationalized teacher professional development program and focusing on how teachers learn and change as a result of this experience. Previous research has focused largely on experiences of internationalized pre-service teacher education while experiences of internationalization of teacher professional development are less addressed in the literature. This study aims to address this gap by advancing our understanding of internationalized teacher professional development and its impact on in-service teachers. I conducted a phenomenographic study using a sample of eleven teachers who underwent an internationalized teacher professional development program. The findings from the research add to the literature by showing that important personal and professional learning can occur as a result of learning within a culturally diverse group of  fellow teachers in a culturally new environment, and that dissonance in teacher thinking can be a very strong motivator for learning and change, lead to important shifts in perspective. This study concludes that internationalized teacher professional development is a highly effective, transformational form of teacher professional development in need of further research.