This literature review aims to emphasize the importance of pursuing the inner drive of a professional teacher to discover, enhance, and alleviate the needed skills to deliver quality education in any form. It is expected from any professional, especially in the education sector, to keep himself updated with the skills and capabilities that would help him deliver quality education to every learner across age brackets. 

Professional development program is a plan that consists specific end results targeted by the teacher and the means of achieving them. This program also provides an outline for what should be done and directs the actions of what should be accomplished. The plans are synchronized which the teacher personally wants to progress and may vary with other teachers since the goals may relate to the role or job level desired to improve teaching styles and capabilities [1].

The idea that the professional development of teachers is a lifelong process which begins with the initial preparation that teachers receive (whether at an institution of teacher education or on the job) and continues at the retirement [2]. The author also emphasized that professional development for opportunities is needed, not only because they promote the recognition of their work as professional, but also because as is the case for all professionals in any field new opportunities for growth, exploration, learning, and development are always welcome. Alzankawi [1] specified that teachers’ professional development is a life-long and continuous process in which teachers are expected to upgrade their knowledge, master new skills, and change their practices, since advancement in their teaching career has an impact on their students’ achievement and education reform.

Mizell (as cited Allen [3]) discussed that professional development focuses on the topics that are related to daily teaching practices. The author stated that the additional professional development among teachers will expand their knowledge and effectiveness in teaching. Another study which supports the strong relationship that links the improvement of teacher’s practices, and the increasing levels of students’ achievement is cited by Villegas-Reimers [2]: “Teachers who participated in sustained curriculum-based professional development reported changes in practice that, in turn, were associated with significantly higher student achievement scores on state assessment.”

Sheninger and Murray (as cited Allen [3]) emphasized that students’ success is factored by highly qualified teachers who undergone professional development practices. The authors implied that the mastery of the content they are teaching their students are based on the training they had before and during the in-service realizations of their roles as educators. The quality of education at any level is highly dependent on the quality of teachers and quality teaching and students’ quality learning are determined by the quality of teachers who are competent in their teaching and learning through continuous learning (Hord, as cited Wolde [4]).

Alzankawi [1] clarified that the variety of individual and organizational trainings, either pursued individually or extended by the institutional affiliations, is a factor that provides this impact on students. Another affirmation of the improvement of students’ performance classroom was cited in the study conducted by Jackson [5]. He mentioned that professional development will continually boost teachers’ knowledge and skills towards favorable outcomes from learners.

Wolde [4] stated that the best way to improve the quality of teaching is through teachers making a commitment to enhancing their pedagogical skills, understanding of learning and child development, and subject knowledge within a culture of continuous improvement. The most effective way to achieve this change is to give teachers more responsibility for their professional development. As cited in the study conducted by Ballidag and Dikilitas [6], motivated educators strive more often to improve their practices by involving themselves in different ways of professional learning including digital environments. Zellma (as cited Pliushch et al. [7]) stated that the efficiency of teachers in compliance with their professional duties is anchored with their professional training.

Successful professional development program greatly affects how the teachers fulfill their role of providing quality learning experiences among learners of different ages. From preparing the lesson to be delivered, down to the evaluating and assessing learner’s level of comprehension, even reflecting both teachers’ and learners’ performance through feedbacking, professional development program plays an integral part in the improvement of these actions. Supplemental professional development opportunities are essential to enhance additional competencies of a teacher in the accomplishment of their daily responsibilities.

School AS Professional Learning Community

The school, as the primary site of practice, is where professional educational practitioners display the mastery of content and specialized skills in preparing our learners to be independent and responsible citizens. Likewise, the school is the best place to bolster every teacher’s both innate and lacking skills to achieve an improved level of performance at the onset of his in-service actualization of role as educator. In connection to an individualized and personalized course of professional development, a teacher’s contextualized professional development is also founded to where he is located because each school has its own cultural workflow, trends, and practices that greatly affects a teacher’s performance. Many existing researches show the relationship between teacher professional learning and educational leadership indicating that practices of distributed leadership (or one of the related terms as shared leadership, collective leadership, collaborative leadership, co-leadership, professional leadership or teacher leadership) seems to be most favorable for teacher professional learning (Poeckert 2012, Grenda and Hackman 2014, as cited in Admiraal [8]).

As mentioned in the study conducted by Admiraal [8], teacher professional development should consider how learning is embedded in professional lives and working conditions, acknowledging the context and the situatedness of teacher. Building an effective collaborative school culture requires the involvement of teachers, administrators, and other professionals working in schools as all merit and can benefit from professional development opportunities [2]. This implies that the success of a professional development course of a teacher is a collaborative effort provided by the school. Organizations must know how the training programs are aligned with the institutions purpose. Therefore, these programs must be examined based on their effectiveness [1]. The author also emphasized that the institution can better assess if it is meeting its training objectives and the resulting quality of teaching and learning of students.

Daniel, Dessalegn, and Girma (as cited Wolde [4]) states that the school is the most useful training area of practices, opportunities, and challenging school-based continuous teacher professional development in primary schools. In his work, Senge (as cited Admiraal [8]) distinguished individual, collaborative, and collective aspects of the concept of learning organization. As learning schools have structures that enable their staff to learn and grow as a professional, operating genuine communities that draw on a shared vision and the collective capacity of their staff in their pursuit of continuous improvement.

In preparing and conceptualizing teacher professional learning, Opfer and Pedder (as cited Admiraal [8]) argue that schools need to develop the processes and practices of learning organizations if they are to offer the conditions that optimize and sustain teacher learning. This leads to an in-depth, strategic, and meaningful activities that will lead to additional, supplemental, and complementary content and skills that the teacher specifically needs. This was confirmed in the study of Lutrick and Szabo (as cited Jackson [5]). They implied that it is the school and district leaders’ responsibility to carefully identify the topics for the professional development. 

As the result of the research conducted by Admiraal [8], interventions that aimed at promoting professional learning opportunities for all staff and stimulating collaborative work and work-based learning activities included sharing knowledge and experiences amongst colleagues leads to a higher participatory rate for the upcoming developmental activities because participants saw the need in involving themselves in any professional development courses provided by the school. As mentioned in the study, teachers are curious and they have positive attitudes towards peer observation, but if it is not well organized, they just do not do it. In connection to this, Ballidag and Dikilitas [6] concluded that feedback from both the facilitators and colleagues motivates the teacher-participant to join and pursue professional development. Another study that confirmed this trend was conducted by Allen [3] as he mentioned that promoting collaborative efforts between the school and the participants will lead to professional growth of teachers and favorable achievements among students.

Alghazo and Alkhazaleh [9] mention in their study that teacher collaboration has been proven successful especially in inclusive classroom set up. Exemplary performance of teachers was displayed when they collaborate in the achievement of the end results expected to them. Designing lesson plans to be delivered and implementations of such strategies and methods by the teacher are fine-tuned when teachers practice these skills through the collaborative efforts done during trainings such as involvement in professional development courses. Also, their study implies that the collaboration between regular education teachers and special education teachers is good yet still needs to further improve the program and courses. 

In general, we can conclude that the more embedded an intervention is in the organization and culture of a school, the more sustainable impact it has, moving schools towards a culture of professional learning and collaboration.

Factors for a Successful Professional Development

It is very important that the participant in any developmental courses significantly notice the difference and improvement from the onset of his participation to the end of the course. This sense of fulfillment is also achieved when the participant was able to put into practice the things and skills he had learned. Thus, the success of any training, program, and activity can be evaluated when visible results are displayed. The articles below state some factors that we can consider as a teacher-participant, facilitator, or program administrator in a teacher’s professional development program. 

Understanding the effects that the factors have on the learning process of the teachers is important in the improvement of the quality of the services that they provide to the students in the institutions (Postholm, 2012 as cited Alzankawi [1]). In the same study conducted by Alzankawi [1], the author specified that the adjustments in creating development programs addressing specific training needs, specific guidelines must be identified to formulate and implement more significant teachers’ developmental programs.

In the study conducted by Darling-Hammond et al. (as cited Jackson [5]), the factors of effective professional development should focus on content, incorporating active learning and utilizing adult learning theory, supporting collaboration, which are typically in job-embedded contexts, using models and modeling of effective practice, providing coaching and expert support, offering opportunities for feedback and reflection, and is of sustained duration.

As mentioned in the study conducted by Corcoran, the principles in designing and implementing professional development such as follows,

• Stimulate and support site-based initiatives

• Be grounded in knowledge about teaching

• Model constructivist teaching

• Offer intellectual, social, and emotional engagement with ideas, materials, and colleagues 

• Demonstrate respect for teachers as professionals and as adult learners

• Provide sufficient time and follow up

• Be accessible and inclusive

Likewise, Desimone (as cited Jackson [5]) enlisted the following to effective professional development:

• Time

• Relevance

• Collaboration

• Supportive school culture and climate

• Adaptive leadership

Darling-Hammond et al. (as cited Jackson [5]) in his study mentioned that the effective professional programming should include: 

• Ongoing and connected opportunities to classroom practice

• Addresses curriculum content

• Work that is aligned towards school improvement 

• Opportunities for collaboration and strengthening work relationships

As these studies suggested, we can summarize the factors that leads to the success of both the program organizers and the participants itself are: (1) the immediate need of the teacher, (2) the partnership of the school and the teachers, (3) timeframe of the program, and (4) accessibility of the materials. By carefully planning these factors ahead, the participants will enjoy any professional development program and see it as beneficial, not another burden on their part.

The Key Feature of Personalized, Individual Plan for Development

Since the school is where teachers display their mastery of the subject matter that they are teaching, interventions and other school-based activities may be provided as professional learning. Founded by the immediate need of every teacher, the collaborative efforts of both the school and the teachers are very important towards quality education. As the designated educational leaders in the school or district prepare a course of developmental activities, it is very essential for the teacher to determine what he is lacking as the starting point of the program. This will then result to a personalized, individualized developmental actions since each teacher has a unique starting point and a different course of development compared to their colleagues in the same station. According to Allen [3], “professional development is tailored to meet the individual needs of teachers.”

Segarra and Gentry [10] mentioned that it is the responsibility of the trainee (teacher) in any professional development program to proactively engage himself in the entire course of the training. Determining specific and personal goals and the means of achieving it are on the teachers’ prerogative, yet the school and outside resources can provide help and assistance. Also, they had given importance that a teacher can create his own course of professional development and track his progress for there is no specific, single-mentioned process of attaining quality skills for it varies upon each participant. The salient result of their study is that teachers should thoroughly assess what areas and skills does he need to improve, gain, and enhance for it is the bases of his professional development course. Upon identifying these gaps, the teacher now must set goals to achieve based either on his terms or upon the recommendation of the institution he belongs. This concerns the timeframe and the degree of accomplishment expected to them. Lastly, creating a plan of action is very critical in the accomplishment of these goals. Securing the resources for the attainment of skills require effort. Most of the determined professional gaps could be catered within the organization but there are also outside sources that can provide the needed training of teachers.

When the goal of professional learning is to prepare teachers to facilitate rich tasks for their students, teachers should participate in every activity as a central part of their learning and sensemaking, in both content and pedagogy (Hughes et al. 2015 as cited in Proffitt et al. [11]). In the study conducted by Ballidag and Dikilitas [6], one of their respondents stated that her major motivation for professional development is her own desire, for she is enjoying what she is doing, and she doesn’t see it as a burden. Drago-Severson (as cited Jackson [5]) noticed that the information gathered from teachers in their career stages can be used for appropriate development to meet their professional needs.

In the study conducted by Pliushch et al. [7], the authors were able to determine a teacher’s professional development. They stated that at low level professional development, teachers have poor development of professional and cognitive motivation for learning. Average level of professional development implies that the teachers are more motivated and intrinsically participating for his growth. At high level of professional development, cognitive and professional motives, especially for those towards success, is well-developed and very evident. Also, the authors emphasized that each level is interconnected as it prepares one for the next level. Likewise, it is critical for a participant to determine his level of motivation in partaking a professional development. With the results of their study, they were able to determine a structure component of professional development stated as: self-actualization, self-cognition, and self-study, which are intertwined with one another towards the achievement of the goal of the program.

As cited by Admiraal [8], previously conducted research had stated that most of the trainings, activities and processes were conducted in isolation, thus its findings and recommendations cannot be replicated by others because the variables may be different from one setting to another, and the program’s success rate might differ. Villegas-Reimers [2] agreed that there is no one-size-fits-all professional development program. No one can choose one form of professional development which is better than any other, as one of the variables may render one format more effective than the next is its compatibility with the culture, the society, and the context in which the teacher and schools coexist. There is no guarantee that the same result will be achieved when applied to another setting because of the variables of the next training program. Mizell (as cited Allen [3]) argued that the “one-size-fit-all” professional development model was perceived as inconvenient by any participant because their professional and immediate need was not considered and addressed during the training session. The contextualization of a teacher’s developmental program is one of the noticeable elements why some encountered failure when they apply a training program they had attended. Considering this, any school or organization who wishes to adapt what seems to be effective and beneficial on them are encouraged to thoroughly depend their program on what their teacher needs. 

In line with the previously stated research outcomes, others may opt to look for outside sources which they think can provide adequate and relevant professional development programs that he needs. Those who seek professional development from outside sources are still welcome if it can provide the need of the teacher pursuing professional development. In response to this emerging challenge, online and hybrid models of professional development can be accessible and flexible alternatives to in-person professional development [11]. In the study conducted by Bichler et al. [12], incorporating technology into professional development had resulted into favorable outcomes to both the teacher and the student. As mentioned in their study, professional development course offered in remote setting seems to be one of the most effective means of providing technical assistance to teachers in customizing their course content towards a desired goals through group brainstorming and discovering new ideas from the shared experiences from colleagues. 

The teacher, as the main recipient of the training, is the core of any professional developmental program that the school or any other outside development providers must consider. Having a specific need, it will lead to numerous training programs ranging from the simplest up to the most complex skills and pedagogical training. Likewise, the teacher’s motivational level should match the school’s and the program’s expectations so that both can achieve favorable results. The training program’s success is measured when the need of the teacher, based on his daily teaching, was solved through the application of what he has learned.

Based on the studies mentioned above about the professional development of teachers, the teacher’s intent to join any professional development programs is very significant in the success of any professional development program and is seldomly mentioned. Though it may be true that professional development would fill in the technical and pedagogical gaps of the teacher in his everyday teaching, it does not necessary mean that the teacher himself would automatically enlist himself to any professional development. In line with this, a study pertaining to the factors in the teacher’s participation and their tendencies to join would be appreciated.

1. Alzankawi, M. and Y. Alenezi. "English language teachers’ perception of PAEET’s professional development programs: implications on guideline formulation for training programs." International Education Studies, vol. 14, no. 9, 2021, doi:10.5539/ies.v14n9p90.

2. Villegas-Reimers, E. Teacher Professional Development: An International Review of the Literature. 2003.

3. Allen, J. "Building teacher capacity in a rural high school through differentiated professional development." 2021.

4. Wolde, B. "The role of continuous professional development in improving secondary school teachers’ teaching and learning competencies to deliver quality education in Ethiopia: A case of secondary school." The Qualitative Report, vol. 26, no. 5, 2021, pp. 1345–1363, doi:10.46743/2160-3715/2021.3650.

5. Jackson, G. "Understanding teacher career stages and the role of leadership in professional development." 2021, http://hdl.handle.net/2142/110441.

6. Ballidag, S. and K. Dikilitas. "Preparatory school teachers’ self-directed online professional development." Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research, vol. 9, no. 3, 2021, pp. 25–38, doi:10.30466/ijltr.2021.121074.

7. Pliushch, V. et al. "The system of future teachers’ professional development." Revista Romaneasca Pentru Educatie Multidimensionala, vol. 13, no. 3, 2021, pp. 51–72, doi:10.18662/rrem/13.3/440.

8. Admiraal, W. et al. "Schools as professional learning communities: what can schools do to support professional development of their teachers?" Professional Development in Education, vol. 47, no. 4, 2019, pp. 684–698, doi:10.1080/19415257.2019.1665573.

9. Alghazo, E. and M. Alkhazaleh. "Collaboration between special education teachers and regular education teachers: implications for professional development." International Journal of Early Childhood Special Education (INT-JECSE), vol. 13, no. 1, 2021, pp. 35–41, doi:10.9756/INT-JECSE/V13I1.211005.

10. Segarra, V. and W. Gentry. "Taking ownership of your career: professional development through experiential learning." 2021, doi:10.1186/s12919-021-00211-w.

11. Proffitt, T.J. et al. "Online education: transferring personal experiences to professional development." Journal of Mathematics and Science: Collaborative Explorations, vol. 17, no. 1, 2021, Article 13, doi:10.25891/66pf-6x61.

12. Bichler, S. et al. "Designing a remote professional development course to support teacher customization in science." Computers in Human Behavior, 2021, doi:10.1016/j.chb.2021.106814.