Dialectic Realities and Loose Coupling in Secondary Teacher Professional Learning in Ireland: The Case of TL21

The Teaching and Learning for the twenty-first century (TL21) programme is an Irish workshop-based school-university partnership that prioritises innovative pedagogic practice within professional learning communities. The programme is specifically tailored to secondary school teachers and senior school leaders across Ireland and has been running since 2003. Longitudinal qualitative data, gathered over the lifetime of the programme, highlights the importance of adaptive flexibility and the need to work in mutually authentic and democratically dialogic ways, acknowledging the significance of partner agency and the professional context in which schools and teachers work. This chapter explores factors that continue to motivate and sustain the involvement of participants within the partnership and the support structures which have proven significant in its lifespan. The chapter will explore the professional benefits of the partnership and how programme partners have worked together to build connections across the varying educational settings. Drawing on Weick (Admin Sci Quart 21:1–19, 1976) concept of “loose coupling” the chapter will explore how the programme has worked in loosely coupled ways within tightly framed national policy priorities. Working in these ways has created opportunities for teachers to exercise agency with greater levels of positivity and capacity for self-critique and reflection.