Renewing teacher professionalism through innovative links

Abstract

In recent years a variety of teacher professional development activities have been implemented in Australia that had at their core the desire to revitalise teacher professionalism and improve practice through school-based inquiry and action research. In this article, the author uses the Innovative Links between Schools and Universities Project for Teacher Professional Development as an example of a successful project in which teacher inquiry provided participating teachers with a critical and analytical orientation to their practice which helped to contribute to a renewing of teacher professionalism. The article is organised around two questions: how can practitioner research contribute to teacher professionalism? and what contribution can school-university partnerships make to renewing teacher professionalism?. © 1997, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.