by Frans van Dam (Freudenthal Institute for Science and Mathematics Education. Utrecht University, The Netherlands)

From 24 to 27 May 2016, the 18 partners of the PARRISE project met in Vienna to discuss their progress in Teacher Professional Development (TPD) in the 11 participating countries. The meeting was hosted by Christine Heidinger and Franz Radits of the University of Vienna.

Partners shared their experiences with the first round of their TPDs, based on the PARRISE theoretical framework. Their objective was to learn from each other’s experiences in order to improve the TPDs for the second round. At the meeting, special attention was paid to discussions about the evaluation of the TPDs, as well as about the dissemination of PARRISE experiences and materials to key stakeholders outside of the PARRISE project, such as teachers and policy-makers.

After four intensive days, coordinator Christine Knippels from Utrecht University concluded that the project consortium had made a lot of progress and gained many new insights for an improved second round of testing the TPDs, the results of which will be discussed in Toulouse in 2017.