Published as : Ross , J . A . , & Regan , E . ( 1993 ) . Sharing professional experience : Its impact on professional development . Teaching and Teacher Education

Provision for teachers to share professional experiences is a core element of contemporary in-service design, even though few systematic attempts to observe the impact of sharing on professional growth have been reported. An argument for the value of professional sharing was developed from a constructivist model of professional development. Data from an in-service program for district consultants (audio tapes of deliberations and pre/post interviews) were used to test two hypotheses about the effects of interrupting narratives. The first was supported: listening to descriptions of professional experience had a positive effect on the growth of listeners who interacted with narrators. There was some support, to a lesser degree, for the second: Professional sharing had a weak effect on the development of narrators, unless the reports were punctuated by metacognitions or challenged by other group members. Sharing Professional