Self-directed professional development to improve effective teaching: Key points for a model

The purpose is identifying the conditions and tools that ensure an articulation between the two processes that mediate self-directed professional development (SD-PD). We accompanied a physical sciences teacher who was interested in improving the quality of her teaching practices in the classroom. Over a ten-year period, we gathered data from her career and from three action-research cycles. The results show that SD-PD has an impact on the quality of teaching practices when it is based on tools and used as a focus for teaching practices. Furthermore, the richer the linkage between the two processes is, the more effective SD-PD is.