This open access book presents a comparative study on how large-scale professional development
programs for teachers are designed and implemented. Around the world governments and educators
are recognizing the need to educate students in a broad range of higher order cognitive skills
and socio-emotional competencies and providing effective opportunities for teachers to develop
the expertise needed to teach these skills is a crucial aspect of effective implementation of
curricula which include those goals. This study examines how large-scale efforts to empower
teachers for deeper instruction have been designed how they have been implemented and their
outcomes. To do so it investigates six programs from England Colombia Mexico India and the
United States. Though all six are intended to broaden and deepen students' curricular
aspirations each takes this expansion of curricular goals in a different direction. The
ambitious education reforms studied here explicitly focus on building teachers' capacity to
teach on a broader set of goals. Through a discerning analysis of program documents
evaluations and interviews with senior leaders and participants in the programs the book
identifies the various theories of action used in these programs examines how they were
implemented and discusses what they achieved. As such it offers an indispensable resource for
education leaders interested in designing and implementing professional development programs
for teachers that are aligned with ambitious instructional goals.
