Partnerships in action: Self-directed community learning

A shift is evident in views of professional development and ways knowledge is developed and applied in workplace environments. There is considerable evidence that situated action is likely to engage learners in activities and interactions that are reflective and practice oriented. A current Education Queensland initiative, Literate Futures: Professional Development - The Teaching of Reading for a Multiliterate World P-7, 7-12, (Education Queensland, 2004) addresses the need for teachers to work collaboratively to innovate and improve their teaching practices in partnerships within and across professional learning communities. The focus of this paper is to examine how partnerships might facilitate this process. An experiential action learning model is used as a framework to examine how partnerships in action support the development of new knowledge and practice. It accounts for those factors that enable or dis-able practitioners as they engage with their own professional learning needs as members of a learning community.