LAUSR

I am penning this editorial in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic that is having a devastating effect across the globe. On behalf of the journal’s Executive Editorial Board, we hope you, your families and communities are safe, healthy and well. The Covid-19 pandemic crisis brings to the fore the imperative, irrespective of job, position, role and responsibilities, from an individual, collective and organisational perspective to invest, time, finances and other resources in ongoing professional learning and development (PLD). Never before in modern times has this been brought into greater focus than now, with health and care workers of all descriptions supported by key frontline staff be they other emergency services personnel, military personnel, educators, postal workers or refuse collectors, stepping up to deal with the devastating impact on the health, wellbeing, education and working situations of their communities. We salute them all for the incredible work they have done, are doing and the many sacrifices they have made, including the ultimate sacrifice of loss of life, in the struggle against this deadly virus. It is because in many professions, notably in the education, health, uniformed and emergency services sectors that such importance has been placed on PLD, that governments and societies have been able to put in place measures to try to counter this virus, in a manner that has undoubtedly saved many lives, because those on the frontline have the knowledge, skills and training to counteract and deal with Covid-19. From a personal perspective, whilst adhering to self-isolation regulations, my PLD has increased and taken on many forms from both a formal and informal perspective. I have undertaken formal PLD courses ranging from Ethical Practices in theWorkplace to Online Community Leadership forMOOCs. Informally, I have started to listen to more podcasts and radio documentaries, as well reading books. These sources have covered subjects as diverse as organisational theory, history, sport and politics. So my PLD is as diverse as the authors and subjects covered in this issue of the journal, which will help to show how important PLD is during calmer times before the Covid-19 crisis impacted so heavily upon us. The first article in this issue is Understanding collaborative teacher teams as open systems for professional development by Kylie Lipscombe, Kellie Buckley-Walker and Peter McNamara. The authors make the link between teacher collaboration and professional development within an Australian primary school context, through examination of collaborative teacher teams by employing an open systems framework. For such teams to work well and have an impact within their respective schools, the authors highlight firstly, the importance and requirement of senior leadership buy-in and direction. Secondly, dedicated meeting times; team facilitation, cohesion and collective decision-making are paramount. Thirdly, key outputs should include developing improved assessment tasks and rubrics, new knowledge – in this case in relation to the mathematics curriculum and collaborative team skills, as well as improved student achievement. As the authors point out, this can help bring about a transformative shared purpose, that I would argue, lessons can be drawn from by organisations, teams and individuals alike during the Covid-19 crisis. Lipscome et al., have used their findings to develop a preliminary framework for collaborative teacher teams as open systems which they argue ‘ . . . encourages school leaders to consider the school system at multiple levels, enabling the environment in which teacher teams operate to support successful sitebased professional development to produce positive outputs to the school organization’. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN EDUCATION 2020, VOL. 46, NO. 3, 369–372 https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2020.1769886