1: Teachers' Professional Learning Networks in China: Tradition, Challenges and Innovation

A PLN is ‘any group [engaged] in collaborative learning with others outside of their everyday community of practice in order to improve teaching and learning’ (Brown & Poortman, 2018, p. 1). This broad description encompasses an extensive range of network types within and across schools.

PLNs in the PRC often manifest as teaching and research units. China has long had a centralised education system in which the Ministry of Education (MOE) designs the curriculum and teacher education. Beginning in 1955, China gradually established a multi-level teaching and research system that set teaching and research units in provincial, city, and county/district education bureaux and in schools to ensure the implementation of its centralised curriculum and provide in-service teachers professional training and learning opportunities.