Teachers’ beliefs about professional development : Supporting emerging networked practices in higher education

• During recent decades society has gone through changes related to social and technological development. These changes have impacted higher education. This has led to emerging networked practices that professionals and the organisations they work within need to respond to. An answer to this challenge to higher education is efforts in professional development. This chapter discusses teachers’ beliefs about such professional development. Particularly, it focuses on how networked practices in higher education are supported and fostered by professional development projects. The study was based at a Swedish university and included the dissemination of beliefs of teachers from three different departments that participated in two development projects. The data materials were collected by using semi-structured interviews from a sample of 19 teachers. The results revealed that professional development concerns beliefs on both individual and collective levels. Within these levels teachers related their professional development to both social and technological networks.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Pedagogik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Pedagogy (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

development projects

higher education

networked learning

professional development

teachers’ beliefs

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kap (ämneskategori)