Using Reflective Diaries to Study Teachers' Identities in an International Online Teacher Professional Development Programme

This article explores the transformative experience of an international online professional development programme on teachers’ identities using evidence from reflective diaries. Membership Categorisation Analysis and Grounded Theory were used to study the reflective diaries of two English Language teachers (the authors). The teachers invoked four identities to make sense of their online experience and recognised that they work in increasingly complex settings where professional development is both goal-oriented and relation-oriented. Their identity construction reflected their awareness of that complexity and the global nature of their profession. The study reveals that a recognition of the multidimensionality of teacher identities is important for understanding the transformative experience of online professional development. Professional development course designers build on such multidimensionality to foster effective educational practices leading to professionalism.