The professional development challenge: Achieving desirable outcomes for students, teachers and teacher educators

This chapter begins with the vested interests of physical education (PE) teachers, teacher educators, and leaders of professional associations because their futures depend on coordinated strategies for meeting the professional development challenge. School PE programmes and companion PE teacher educators programmes are fixtures in national, state, and provincial education systems. Teachers and teacher educators enjoy an occupational monopoly in some of these places, i.e. they enjoy exclusive rights to practice in school systems and higher education institutions. Like a spider’s web, national associations are connected to nearly every aspect of the profession. For example, national associations accredit professional education programmes, and some are involved in state/provincial licensure. Readers are invited to inspect the continuous professional development norms, requirements, and programme provisions emphasized by professional associations in their host nations. Teachers of all school subjects are increasingly required to perform in accordance with policy requirements, oftentimes called “educational/professional standards”.