A systemic approach to professional development: learning as practice

This paper disturbs assumptions that policy for secondary school teachers' continuing professional development should be dominated by courses, workshops and suchlike events. Research into learning, communities of practice and complexity establishes a contrary view, namely that subject departments are prime sites of non-predictable professional learning. Practical implications are sketched, leading to a recommendation that continuing professional development policies and practices should be systemically reconsidered. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.