From personification to self-management of teachers' professional development: Paradigm, content, and design of educational programs

Education for a complex world requires a paradigm of continuous professional development for teachers (CPDT). However, its implementation is complicated by the misalignment between the goals and objectives of CPDT and the content, resources, and tools, as well as the approaches and mechanisms for analyzing CPDT’s effectiveness. This study aims to solve this problem by organizing personalized CPDT (PCPDT) for educators to master metacognitive self-development strategies in relevant professional development courses (RPD courses). This study, conducted at the National Center for Professional Development (Kazakhstan), identifies scientific and methodological foundations for developing educational programs for PCPDT in RPD courses. The theoretical significance of the study findings is related to the conceptualization of PCPDT in terms of pedagogical design and the PCPDT resources for the educational ecosystem of professional development. The practical significance of the findings is linked to the transformation of professional development for educators to foster their self-development trajectory. Self-directed professional development stimulates evolutionary, stable, and continuous improvement in learners’ educational practices and academic achievements.