Title: Exploring the Meaning of Professional Development Through Early Childhood Teachers` Learning Experiences Based on Transformative Learning Theory
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to understand the meaning of early childhood teachers` professional development through exploring their learning experiences by the lens of Mezirow`s transformative learning theory. Semi-structured and in-depth interviews were conducted with three teachers with five of more years of teaching experience. The collected data were analyzed and interpreted in qualitative approach. The results of this study showed that the learning experience of teachers could be categorized into two aspects (additive and transformative learning) and that transformative learning has been shown in a series of phases: critical reflection, discourse, and action. Such a transformative learning pattern made it necessary to look at the professional development of teachers as a personal, dynamic process of meaning construction, not a one-way or linear process, which is more than acquisition of new teaching skills and knowledge or improvement of existing ones. Also, the professional development as a transformative learning process led to the teachers taking a critical look at their frame of reference and opened up their own assumptions and beliefs.
Publication Year: 2010
Publication Date: 2010-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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