Professional Agency for Learning as a Key for Developing Teachers’ Competencies?

Teacher’s professional competencies have been discussed extensively in the literature, often linked to educational policy discourses, teaching standards, student learning outcomes, or the intended outcomes of teacher education. Extensive, but fragmented and loosely theoretically or empirically based lists of teacher competencies are provided without much clarification of how, when, and why teachers learn and identify the competencies they need. Teacher competencies and how they are related to the core of their work as thinking practice have been discussed extensively by a range of stakeholders. However, what is actually needed in order to attain such competencies has been less studied. This paper contributes to the gap in the literature on active and intentional learning of teacher competencies by elaborating the relationship between teacher competencies and professional agency for learning. Through this, our aim in this article is to provide a better understanding of the topic, both theoretically and empirically. Drawing on earlier research, we have elaborated on the relationships between a teacher’s professional competencies and agency for learning among pre- and in-service teachers. We also aim to answer the question: what characteristics of teacher education lead to student teachers becoming competent and agentic? Why should we focus on those features during pre-service teacher education and as part of a teacher’s career?