of teaching improved teachers' learning and performance through reflection and
professional discourse.
We assume that in order to increase the effectiveness of the CPD programmes, it is
important that the teachers share what is meant by accomplished practice in the
particular domain. The shared vision and its explication can provide a sense of
direction, and guide the teachers to focus their efforts towards the central goals of
accomplished teaching in the particular domain. Indeed, teachers commented that
agreed standards to define accomplished teaching in specific domains were useful as
tools to improve competence and against which to judge competence as shown in
evidence collected from the classroom. For us as CPD providers the definitions of
accomplished teaching within each domain have been an integral part of our planning
of new CPD programmes and as tools to help teachers to map progress and decide on
next steps towards accomplished teaching.
It should be noted that coming to agreement about accomplished teaching in each
domain was grounded in different cultural contexts, different countries and to some
extent with teachers of students of different ages. Competences that might be
considered to be basic in one cultural context, may be considered to be advanced in
another and vice versa. Although there are many commonalities between science
teaching in the UK and in Israel, there are also differences. It should not, therefore,
be surprising if there are differences between say the accomplished teaching of
scientific enquiry in the UK and the accomplished teaching of inquiry in Israel. What
would be surprising, however, would be if there were not many more commonalities
in the descriptions.
The Continuing Professional Development Programmes
The project was conducted over the period of three years (2002-2005). The project
was carried out in collaboration with teachers to bridge between theory and practice
and to increase the validity and feasibility of the proposed programmes.
The project consisted of three phases. In each phase a new cohort of teachers
undertook the CPD programmes:
• Phase 1- the CPD programmes were designed and piloted, either using teachers
who had some expertise in the domain or, in the case of the Israelis, leading
(exemplary) teachers (N= 32).
• Phase 2 -the CPD programmes were trialed and evaluated by experienced
teachers who had only a small amount of knowledge of the specific domain
(N= 38).
• Phase 3 - the CPD programmes were refined and then trialed again by teachers
with minimal knowledge of the domain(N= 34).
Each of the CPD programmes involved the teachers in some 30-40 hours of teacher
meetings. The organization of the CPD programmes varied across the domains to try
and fit in with preferred timings for both the teachers and the researchers. Typically,