Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN EDUCATION, cilt.1, ss.1-20, 2025 (SSCI, Scopus)
This collaborative autoethnography study aims to discuss our retrospective and prospective reflections on managing an in-service teacher training project in Türkiye as part of our professional development. Guided by Mezirow’s theory of transformative learning, we engaged in a reflective journey, self-analysing our values, ethics, self-awareness, and emotions, along with our soft skills, to understand how these factors advance our academic development and the impact of the project. The study’s findings indicate that intercultural competency qualities, such as patience, humility, passion, navigating power dynamics, facing constraints, and acknowledging the teacher’s agency with respect, contributed to the development of project management skills. These insights resonate with international debates on professional learning, showing how reflection and intercultural competence underpin project management in academic growth. As for the implications, we advocate that professional training programmes that enhance the emotional aspects and positive human traits between people should be embedded not only in professional development for academics but also during postgraduate programmes designed for academic training.