“Doing it differently”: contextual adaptations of the ProW intervention to Portuguese Early Childhood Education Teachers

At the beginning of ProW intervention in Portugal, some cultural and contextual specificities were found, namely the limited time teachers had due to their participation in other professional development activities and theoretically based training programs that the teachers considered not sufficiently useful and applicable to their daily practice. To address these challenges, actions were taken to increase the feasibility and teachers’ perceived usefulness and applicability of the ProW intervention. Since many of these adapted features are supported by existing literature, they may be useful for the implementation of future training programs and interventions.

Some of the main features were:

Flexibility in scheduling, training program design, and coaching style to overcome time constraints and to meet participants’ expectations.

Practical sessions, including fun and puzzling activities/challenges, which help to keep the participants curious and engaged with the contents.

Sharing and group reflection processes help to overcome potential resistance to receiving professional development training from external coaches who are not members of the educational community.

Informality, active listening, honesty, and modesty by the coaches helps to overcome initial reluctance and build trust.