Informal Professional Development: Activities, Antecedents, and Outcomes

Kyndt, E., Gijbels, D., Grosemans, I., & Donche, V. (2016). Teachers' everyday professional development: Mapping informal learning activities, antecedents, and learning outcomes. Review of Educational Research, 86(4), 1111-1150.

In this literature review, the authors conducted a systematic review of 74 studies on teachers' informal learning, identifying learning activities, antecedents, and outcomes.

Results indicated five reasons for informal learning. It is key as it relates to school reform, or new teaching methods. It effects student learning, and teacher retention. Additionally, it should be examined due to increasing pressures on teachers, and the lack of influence of traditional professional development (p. 1121). They suggested that informal and formal learning are not dichotomous, but rather on opposite ends of a continuum and indicate that informal and formal learning "should both be seen as equally important elements of workplace learning." (p. 1111).

The authors noted seven categories of learning activities. They are:

1) Interaction and discussion with others, including collaboration and sharing. Collaboration occurred with colleagues, but the reviewed articles did not describe the process.Sharing included information, materials, and practices.

2) Practicing and Testing, with two subcategories-Learning from doing/experiencing which involved learning from every day activities, and experimenting which involved trying new ideas.

3) Learning from others without interaction

4) Consulting information sources

5) Reflection in and on action (sounds like Shon's work??)

6) Extracurricular activities

7) Encountering difficulties (This makes me think of Dana & Yendol-Hoppey's work on inquiry/teacher research/action research). (p. 1123-1124).

To examine the antecedents, the authors used a heuristic framework, and looked at antecedents at the micro-level (individual and job related), the meso-level (learning activities), and the macro-level (school, structural, social contexts).

Inhibiting and facilitating antecedents to informal learning were identified and included: "personal characteristics",

" teachers' willingness to learn,"

"job characteristics,"

"learning content,"

"school context," and

"broader context." (p. 1131). School culture was identified as critical and noted within the broader context category.

Time was also identified as an antecedent.It was noted that these antecedents did not typically operate in isolation, but often operated in connection with others.

Kyndt et al. identified 3 main area of learning outcomes:

"subject knowledge,"- based on content

"pedagogical knowledge and skills"-teaching skills and methods, management and discipline practices, and

"professional attitudes and identity." (p. 1134).

Eraut (2004) suggests that these are connected to the individual and the context, and should be examined holistically.

The authors suggested that beginning teachers are eager to learn, and veteran teachers "refine and diversify their instructional techniques through experimentation" (p. 1115). This makes me again consider how teacher inquiry/action research can support teachers' professional development.

After my first layer of data analysis for my dissertation, it is clear that this informal learning plays a role in what happens in the classroom, or not.

Quotes from the article:

"...collaboration is at the heart of their teacher learning and their communities of practice" (p. 1140.

"School culture can be defined as "the beliefs, values, habits and assumed ways of doing things among communities of teachers who have had to deal with similar demands and constraints over many years" (Hargreaves in Flores, 2004, p. 299), p. 1133.

"Informal learning is characterized by a low degree of planning and organizing in terms of learning context, learning support, learning time, and learning objectives. Informal learning opportunities are not restricted to certain environments. The learning results from engagement in daily work-related activities in which learning is not the primary goal. Informal learning is undertaken autonomously, either individually or collectively, but without an instructor. It often happens spontaneously and unconsciously. From the learner's perspective, it is unintentional. Finally, informal learning outcomes are unpredictable." (p. 2393-2394 in Kyndt, E., Govaerts, N., Verbeek, E., & Dochy, F. (2014). Development and validation of a questionnaire on informal workplace learning outcomes: A study among socio-educational care workers. British Journal of Social Work, 44, p. 2391-2410).