Exponential growth in opportunities for global communication and access to information means that both our institutions and knowledge are dynamic and changing in the modern society. For teachers in such a constantly changing environment to be successful, they must become lifelong learners. This dissertation is concerned with the problem that there are practicing teachers who are not strengthening their attitude toward lifelong learning, or, even worse are ignoring the precepts of continuing teacher education specifically designed to support teachers' focus on to becoming lifelong learners.

The research assumes that a positive attitude toward lifelong learning is likely enhanced when practicing teachers find their own inservice learning experiences meaningful in significant ways. What kinds of inservice learning do experienced teachers find meaningful? How do teachers who share instructional events differ in what they find learning meaningful? This study seeks to understand the kinds of learning that practicing teachers appreciate, believe to be worthwhile, and want to experience again--learning they find supportive in encouraging them to commit seriously to learning.

I began with 9 experienced teachers in a university-based summer professional development program in Taiwan--a graduate program in school guidance that teachers attend for four consecutive summers. Before the class began, the teachers were given a survey about their learning experiences. After attending classes with the teachers, I led 5 focus group interviews and 9 individual interviews with the teachers to identify those experiences each found meaningful. I used grounded theory strategies to analyze collected data: survey responses, classroom observation fieldnotes, and interview transcripts.

I found perspectives on meaningfulness of learning to vary among teachers, but to emphasize practicality, relationship with instructors, and consistency of ideas with their current thinking. Teachers found learning meaningful in three areas: growth, instructor, and peer. The extent to which learning experiences contributed to intellectual growth was the most common criterion teachers applied in judging them to be meaningful.

I developed a three-layer model to represent the nature of learning contributing to teachers' intellectual growth. When describing meaningful learning experiences, teachers claimed that they grew in three domains: taught disciplinary knowledge, serendipitous knowledge, and self-knowledge. Teachers appreciated learning both conceptual and procedural knowledge. Some of teachers emphasized that learning experiences were strongly meaningful when they learned the knowledge they desired to obtain. Teachers held multiple perspectives on meaningful learning. A common perspective was wanting to continue learning when the taught disciplinary knowledge was learned well. Teachers varied in finding meaningfulness in the same courses. They varied in their perceptions less in the courses that they highly valued than in those that they did not. Differences in their perceptions emerged in the areas of growth (taught disciplinary knowledge, serendipitous knowledge, and self-knowledge) each teacher valued, as well in the teachers' emphasis on the content that they desired to learn.