The continuous professional development of the teacher (CPD) has long been considered a
prerequisite for the career and also for economic progress. CPD must be compared to standards
which also make it possible to construct validation systems for the teachers’ skills in progress.
The issue of teaching professionalism emerges also in the Italian legislative debate. We outline the
research “The continuous professional development of the teacher: from the Improvement Plan to the
appraisal”, conducted with a group of 33 schools in Southern Italy, the University of Bari and Unione
Cattolica Italiana Insegnanti Medi (UCIIM, teachers’ association). The research project investigated
the documentation of practices (connected with school’s self-evaluation, teacher evaluation and
appraisal procedures) to improve the quality of teaching and to develop teacher professionalism.
Three phases of research training occurred: a) The first phase involved a specific document analysis
of “Rav” and “PdM” (acronyms for Self-Assessment Report – Rapporto di Auto-Valutazione – and
Improvement Plan – Piano di Miglioramento). These documents were presented to the teaching
staff and served as the primary materials for self-evaluation and decision-making. b) In the second
phase, referred to as “professional development,” the skills audit and standards were introduced and
collaboratively developed with the teachers. These documents formed the foundation of a teacher’s
professional development program. c) The third phase was dedicated to “merit appraisal.” It focused
on selecting and analyzing the best appraisal sheets, which were considered the primary documents
for assessing merit and promoting teachers. The school staff involved over 300 people, including
teachers and principals. The results of the study underlined: the impact of the documentary practices
introduced by school evaluation system on professional development; the importance of university-school collaboration supporting school-based assessment and teachers’ professional development,
shifting from a top-down orientation to more teacher self-regulating initiatives; the methodological-educational choice of principals as teachers’ tutors.
Author : Laura Sara Agrati
Systematic Reviews on In-Service Training Effectiveness. A Prior Comparative Analysis of the Used Terms
The professional development of teachers has a definite impact on the improvement of the entire
educationalsystem (OECD, 2018; Darling-Hammond, 2017). Forthisreason, the main international
organizations – OECD (2013 ), European Commission (2012 ) – ask countries to establish
feedback and accountability procedures for in-service training (ITT), for the ‘
process by
which teachers engage in further education or training to refresh or upgrade their professional
knowledge, skills and practices in the course of their employment’ (UNESCO, 2019). Researchers
state that here are numerous factors to be considered in carrying out this work: the type and quality
of training, school climate, students’ skills, knowledge domain, etc. (Lipowsky & Rzejak, 2015).
After a brief presentation of howthe mostrecentsystematic reviews on the topic have been conducted
(Filges et al, 2019; Egert et al, 2018; Kalinowski et al., 2019), this article presents the results of a study
on the terms and constructs in use in the context of the researches into in-service teacher/continuing
professional training, impact/effect, and programs/instructions. The data and information collected
offer a comparative analysis (Esser & Hanitzsch, 2012), based on systematic reviews (Polanin et al.,
2019) and a meta-analysis, useful for setting up further meta-analytical investigations on the topic
especially in terms of the disambiguation of terms and the narrowing of the field.
The training of in-service teachers in many countries has been made compulsory and structural
and is conceived as an opportunity for growth and professional development for the entire school
community, and a strategic and functional logic forimproving the quality of the schoolsystem (Perla,
2019).
However, ministries of education do not yet have a univocal model and shared procedures
capable of describing and analysing the impact that the training provided has in the terms set out
in the European Commission (2020): output – results achieved immediately, i.e. increase in skillsfocus subject to training; outcome – wider benefits for involved teachers – improvement of teaching
practices of teachers involved in training; outreach – effects on the institutional and social context of
the school where and of the territory within which the teachers involved in the training.