The Impact of Local Versus Nonlocal Professional Development Programs for Teachers: Evidence From China’s National Teacher Training Project

Based on qualitative and quantitative data collected from an investigation of the flagship National Teacher Training Project (NTTP) in China, this study compares the impacts of teacher professional development (PD) programs located at different distances from the participants’ workplaces. The study argues that local and nonlocal programs play different roles in teacher PD. While local programs are conducive to teachers’ mastery of context-specific knowledge and skills that are directly connected to subject teaching, nonlocal programs are crucial for teachers’ continuous professional development in the long term. The two types of programs are supplementary to each other, and teachers need access to both types of programs.

Introduction Garet et al. (2001) developed a mode of effective teacher professional development (PD) based on data from a national survey of 1,027 American teachers.Although there is no shortage of research concerning effective PD, Garet's study was ground-breaking because it employed large-scale empirical data to test relevant assumptions (Desimone et al. 2002;Penuel et al. 2007).The resulting PD mode has since been widely cited (e.g., Admiraal et al., 2016;Barrera-Pedemonte, 2016;Geldenhuys & Oosthuizen, 2015;Jensen et al., 2012;Kutaka et al., 2017;Opfer, 2016;Rotermund et al., 2017;Song et al., 2018;Tan et al., 2015) and comprises five features: a focus on content and how students learn content, teachers' collaboration and collective participation, active learning, coherence with local teaching contexts and teachers' teaching beliefs, and extended duration.
It is argued that the five features are often interrelated.Because teachers from the same school, grade, or department (collective participation) interact with the same student body and share the same teaching requirements (a focus on content and student learning), they have the potential to engage in ongoing collaboration (teacher collaboration and extended duration) by actively participating (active learning) in context-based learning (coherence with local contexts and teacher beliefs).Some researchers call PD activities that reflect various degrees of the five features the ''reform types'' of PD (Garet et al., 2001) to highlight their differences from traditional PD, which is composed of one-shot lectures or short-term workshops offered by external experts.The reform types of PD are also called ''school-based,'' ''on-site,'' or ''in-house'' PD (Korthagen, 2017;Lee, 2007;Ling & Mackenzie, 2001; Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2018 ;Opfer, 2016;Rotermund et al., 2017) when the relevant activities are conducted on the premises of the school to address authentic issues in teaching.In contrast, ''traditional,'' ''off-site,'' or ''out-of-school'' PD involves pulling teachers out of their working contexts to acquire knowledge that is constructed and disseminated by outsiders (Antoniou & Kyriakides, 2013;Atay, 2006;Gutierez, 2016;The New Teacher Project [TNTP], 2015;Opfer, 2016;Rotermund et al., 2017).Although off-site PD gives teachers opportunities to reach out to experts who would be unavailable in their workplaces, it is criticized for being remote from teachers' daily lives (Akiba & Liang, 2016;Atay, 2006).The knowledge thus obtained is difficult to translate into instructional practice (Desimone & Garet, 2015).However, recently, there have been calls for teachers to leave their schools to participate in out-of-school PD.It is argued that too much reliance on school-based PD leads to groupthink that isolates teachers and their schools from novel outside information (Rinco´n-Gallardo & Fullan, 2016).In addition, out-of-school PD allows teachers to break from their routines (Atay, 2006).
The study reported here uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate the flagship National Teacher Training Project (NTTP) in China.The study attempts to compare the impacts of PD programs located at different distances from participants' workplaces.The NTTP is an umbrella program comprising many different PD programs sponsored by the Chinese central and local governments.The programs under the NTTP are offered by a variety of providers, including universities, public, and private training companies, teacher PD agencies, and base schools.Some programs are subject focused, and others are more general, concerning topics such as the use of information technology and classroom management.In their initial years, NTTP programs usually took the form of shortterm courses.Due to widespread criticisms of this mode of ''traditional'' PD, in recent years, the NTTP has emphasized the adoption of reform modes of PD.In addition to purely online training, a typical program offers a combination of various activities, including faceto-face and online lectures, workshops, team projects, school visits, and lesson studies.Even in purely online training, e-forums, team projects, and online lesson observations are adopted to elicit teachers' active participation and collaboration.The programs last from several weeks to several semesters.In each program, a teacher community composed of teachers participating in the same program is often established.The community remains active during and after the program is completed.Therefore, an NTTP program combines at least the following three of the five features of effective PD to different degrees: teacher collaboration, active learning, and extended duration.
Most NTTP programs target teachers in the same village, town, or county.Some pull teachers out of their villages or counties to participate in PD activities with peers from the same province.In a very limited number of cases, teachers across the country gather together to attend cross-provincial programs.Therefore, the NTTP provides a chance to research and compare the impact of PD programs at different distances from the workplaces of the participants.Although the NTTP is seldom school-based, programs targeting teachers in the same village or county share some commonalities with schoolbased programs.The participants of both types of programs are acquaintances living in a small community.The activities are organized and implemented by local experts with limited exposure to external expertise.The PD content mostly addresses local problems and emphasizes immediately applicable skills.Therefore, research findings of school-based PD could be relevant to NTTP programs for teachers in a small community.
The following paragraphs first review the existing literature on school-based and out-of-school PD.This review is followed by a brief introduction of the NTTP and the research methods of the current study.The article then describes the NTTP's impact on two types of teacher development and the relationships of these types of teacher development with the location of NTTP programs.The article argues that local and nonlocal programs play different roles in teacher PD.While local programs are conducive to teachers' mastery of contextspecific knowledge and skills, nonlocal programs are crucial for teachers' continuous development.
The Dilemma of School-Based and Out-of-School PD: A Literature Review

Advantages of School-Based PD
According to data from the OECD's Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), school-based PD is positively related to student performance (OECD, 2018), and teachers' beliefs, such as preparedness and selfefficacy (Barrera-Pedemonte, 2016;Opfer, 2016).This is true even after background variables concerning students (such as race and prior achievement) and schools (such as school size and the proportion of minority students) are controlled (Ronfeldt et al., 2015).Due to its alleged effectiveness, school-based PD has been advocated by governments worldwide.For example, in Norway (Svendsen, 2016), Sweden (Drakenberg, 2001), and Singapore (Hairon & Tan, 2017), regular time slots are reserved for teachers to collaborate at school.In the US, 81% of public school teachers currently regularly participate in PD activities in their schools (Battersby, 2019).
The oft-mentioned reasons for the effectiveness of school-based PD are as follows: first, embedded in teachers' working context, school-based PD is tailored to specific challenges that teachers and their schools confront (e.g., Lloyd & Davis, 2018;Margolis et al., 2017;OECD, 2018;Opfer, 2016).This is consistent with the concept of ''situated learning'' (Mueller & Welch, 2006, p.145), which emphasizes the relevance of PD and the direct implementation of acquired skills in the workplace (Lee, 2007).In this context, schools become a ''professional space'' (Admiraal et al., 2016, p.289) for teachers to grow.
Second, school-based PD offers teachers more support than out-of-school PD.For example, teachers from the same school are more likely to observe each other's classrooms and conduct peer learning than teachers from different schools participating in out-of-school PD (OECD, 2018).Frequent meetings among teachers indicate the intensive exchange of information (Somech & Drach-Zahavy, 2007).The meetings also provide opportunities to establish mutual trust, which makes teachers feel safe in implementing difficult innovations (Penuel et al., 2007) and ''to criticize and to be criticized by their colleagues'' (Admiraal et al., 2016, p.289).Research has shown that the more often teachers meet, the more likely they are to use innovative teaching methods (Sargent, 2015).
Third, school-based PD allows for innovations beyond individual classrooms as found in Israeli schools (Avidov-Ungar, 2018).Similarly, Tytler et al. (1999) compared the impact of two PD programs on primary school science teachers.In one program, teachers from several schools participated in activities generally held at universities; in the other program, the activities were school based with support from university experts.Whereas both programs changed the participants' classroom behaviours, the loci of the changes were quite different.In the first program, the teachers changed as individuals, whereas in the second program, wholeschool changes were identified.

Limitations of School-Based PD
Despite the above merits, one of the most often criticized aspects of school-based PD is groupthink.Although the strength of school-based PD lies in its insider knowledge (Margolis et al., 2017), the school could become a place where superiors and experienced teachers ''instruct'' their young counterparts in the dominant culture (Lai, 2010).The exclusiveness of school-based PD can create ''a new form of isolation'' (Vangrieken et al., 2015, p.29) that reproduces existing practices (Qiao et al., 2018).In some Chinese schools, young teachers remain silent or echo the opinions of experienced colleagues (Yuan et al., 2018).In Canada, school-based PD is sometimes regarded as authoritarian and hostile to change (King, 2016).
Moreover, school-based PD often focuses on concrete skills and tools that are immediately useful for practice (Postholm, 2018) at the cost of conceptualizing (Cravens & Wang, 2017;Molle, 2013) and creating integrated knowledge structures (Cameron et al., 2013;Franke et al., 2001).While traditional modes of PD are criticized for their difficulty in connecting theories to practices, school-based PD is criticized for its difficulty in connecting practices to theories (Korthagen, 2017).
School-based PD is particularly constraining for experienced teachers who are used as models for other teachers and who therefore regard school-based PD as lacking challenges for them (Loughran & Gunstone, 1997;Vangrieken et al., 2017).Compared with their younger colleagues, experienced teachers more frequently attend conferences and workshops to develop critical conversations with a wider scope of colleagues (Fox et al., 2015;Geldenhuys & Oosthuizen, 2015).They also prefer to learn from university academics and experts from other educational fields to access a variety of viewpoints (Taylor et al., 2011).
Considering the above criticisms, outside experts are usually invited to school-based PD to interrupt conventional patterns, to offer alternative perspectives (Feldman, 2020) and to ask fundamental questions about schooling (Sprott, 2019).Much of the existing literature agrees that teachers and their schools welcome outside experts and that the quality of external support is critical for the success of school-based PD (Wong, 2010a).A study of 23 Dutch schools concluded that leadership by external experts improved teachers' satisfaction with school-based PD (Prenger et al., 2017).In a case study of two groups of teachers from a school in China, one group received external support, and the other deployed internal knowledge only.Whereas the first group implemented new ways of teaching, the second group exhibited routinized habits of instruction (Wong, 2010b).

Advantages and Limitations of Out-of-School PD
To encourage teachers to think critically and innovatively, in recent years, there has been a resurgence of calls for out-of-school PD.This is particularly true ''when schools reach a certain quality threshold'' (Brown et al., 2020, p.76) and then cease innovation.Supporters of out-of-school PD usually appeal to social network theory or social capital theory.By harnessing resources held by outside actors (Chapman & Muijs, 2014), out-of-school PD enlarges teachers' pool of information, skills, perspectives, and even vocabularies and styles.
Research has found that out-of-school PD can also lead to innovation and better performance (Somech & Drach-Zahavy, 2007).A report on mathematics and science teaching in Cyprus confirmed that teacher effectiveness was positively related to the number of training courses taken by teachers (Antoniou & Kyriakides, 2013).In Croatia, the more frequently teachers received out-of-school PD, the more likely they were to critically reflect on their own beliefs and everyday practices (Vujicˇic´& Tambolasˇ, 2017).In some studies, teachers rated out-of-school PD higher than school-based PD (EL-Deghaidy et al., 2015;Lee, 2007).For example, when rating a set of PD activities including out-of-school training and various forms of school-based learning, teachers from 14 American schools gave the highest rating to out-of-school training (Lucilio, 2009).
However, in out-of-school PD, trust is difficult to build because teachers may not know each other.Teachers may worry about showing their vulnerability publicly (Vangrieken et al., 2017) and be reluctant to be critical toward each other.Teachers of out-of-school PD also receive a low level of support from colleagues at their own schools because their colleagues have little interest in the PD (Prenger et al., 2017).In this way, outof-school PD consolidates the isolation of teachers within their schools.Moreover, compared with schoolbased PD, out-of-school PD tends to be ''general'' to cater to the demands of teachers from different backgrounds.This can harm the effectiveness of PD due to a lack of localized approaches (Chapman & Muijs, 2014).
Existing studies have generally focused on a particular PD activity or examined a group of teachers' perspectives on a variety of PD activities.There are few studies comparing the effects of PD programs located at different distances from the schools where the program participants work.This study investigates different types of NTTP programs in terms of their distances from teachers' workplaces.This study intends to answer the following question: What are the differences in the impact of local and nonlocal NTTP programs on teacher development, and why are they different?
The Study

The NTTP and Program Locations
The NTTP was launched in 2010 to improve the quality of in-service teachers across China.Between 2010 and 2019, 17.2 billion yuan from the center was invested in the NTTP for the training of 16.8 million teachers.According to the distance between the location of an NTTP program and its participants' workplaces, this study categorizes NTTP programs into three types.A small number of programs, termed ''cross-provincial programs'' in this study, are attended by teachers from different provinces.Usually, these teachers teach at different levels of education.They travel to another province to attend intensive courses and workshops at a university.The presenters include university academics, researchers, outstanding school teachers and principals, and subject experts when applicable.A considerable number of presenters are famous experts in China.
Interactive learning opportunities such as school visits and class observations are organized in line with the theme of the program.Sometimes, the participants also design a lesson together and choose a participant to deliver the lesson while the others observe and offer feedback.During their stays at the university, participants are divided into groups to conduct team projects.Their accommodations on campus provide them with additional opportunities to become acquainted with each other.After they finish learning at the university and return to their schools, online platforms such as blogs are employed for follow-up support and peer communication.The program providers also assign follow-up tasks via online platforms.Meanwhile, social media platforms, including WeChat and Tencent QQ, are used to construct online communities to disseminate information and facilitate peer discussion.In this study, 5.8% of the respondents had participated in cross-provincial programs.
Some programs (attended by 22.8% of the respondents), termed ''provincial programs'' in this study, are held at a university and attended by teachers from the same province.These programs generally take the same form as cross-provincial programs.In both types of programs, a considerable number of presenters, including academics and school teachers, are famous experts invited from across the country.They also employ the same online and social media platforms for collaboration.However, provincial programs may address more context-sensitive issues than cross-provincial programs.For example, in provinces inhabited by ethnic minority groups, minority languages are usually employed as the medium of instruction.Therefore, provincial programs may focus on the teaching of local languages.
In this study, cross-provincial and provincial programs are also referred to as nonlocal programs.
Most NTTP programs (attended by 71.3% of the respondents), termed ''local programs,'' are aimed at teachers from the same village, town, or county.Teachers participating in cross-provincial and provincial programs usually act as change leaders in their localities.After finishing their NTTP programs, these teachers become trainers in local programs.They give lectures and workshops to local teachers, teach model lessons, and observe classes.Notably, training local teachers is often a follow-up task assigned to participants after cross-provincial and provincial programs.University academics sometimes participate in local programs to offer sustained support.In addition, experts from other provinces are sometimes invited, but their involvement is not as intensive as in cross-provincial and provincial programs.

Research Methods
This study adopted qualitative and quantitative research methods.At the beginning of the study, 11 NTTP program managers, 11 cross-provincial and provincial program trainers, and 22 participating teachers were interviewed using semi-structured interviews.The interviewees came from 11 provinces and took part in different types of NTTP programs.The interview questions for the program managers and trainers included the following: How did you organize/implement NTTP programs?What were the impacts of the programs on the participating teachers?What issues did you encounter when organizing/implementing the programs?The interview questions for the participating teachers were as follows: Could you please tell us your experiences and opinions of the NTTP programs that you participated in?What have you learned from the programs?If there were one thing that you could change about the NTTP, what would it be?Further questions were offered according to the interviewees' answers to the questions.All interviews were recorded with the permission of the interviewees, and confidentiality was ensured.The records were transcribed verbatim.
Using the strategy of open coding, the transcriptions were coded intensively to identify the impacts of the NTTP and the underlying reasons.Similar codes were grouped into categories.Based on the coding of the interview transcriptions, nine aspects of teacher development promoted by the NTTP were identified and categorized into two groups (see Table 2).Factors that could influence teacher development through the NTTP were proposed.
On the basis of the findings of the interviews, an online teacher questionnaire was designed.The questionnaire mainly included three parts.Part 1 concerned the background information of the respondents.Part 2 asked the respondents about the recent NTTP program in which they participated.Part 3 used a 4-point scale (1 = no impact and 4 = significant impact) to examine the respondents' ratings of the impact of the NTTP program on the nine aspects of teacher development and their opinions of the NTTP.A link to the questionnaire was sent to local educational authorities who promised to send the link to NTTP participants in their jurisdiction.By September 4, 2020, 42,685 respondents from 25 provinces had completed the questionnaire voluntarily.Some of the background data from Part 1 and Part 2 are presented in Table 1.The majority of the respondents came from developing regions (i.e., central and western provinces).This finding is consistent with the fact that between 2010 and 2019, approximately 99% of NTTP participants worked at schools in central and western provinces.Educational conditions in developed and developing regions can greatly differ.For example, in Shanghai, one of the most developed cities in China, a school may have more than 70 teachers teaching the same subject.However, in villages in western China, teachers always complain about feeling lonely due to the small size of the schools.
Multiple regression analysis was carried out.The independent variable was the distance between the program location and the respondent's school.The programs were assigned a value of ''1' (local programs), ''2'' (provincial programs), or ''3'' (cross-provincial programs), with larger numbers indicating longer distances from the respondent's school.The nine aspects of teacher development were the outcome variables of each regression.The control variables concerned the background of the respondents (such as the region where the respondent was located, years of teaching experience, social reputation of the school where the respondent worked, educational qualification, and professional title) and the background of the NTTP programs in which the respondents participated (such as the program focus and duration).
In Table 3, although the b values of the multiple regressions were relatively small, the statistically significant differences that the program location caused indicate that it deserves attention.Moreover, in the interviews, those participating in nonlocal programs and local programs talked about their experiences in apparently different ways, which further implies the importance of the program location.

Main Findings
As mentioned above, the NTTP programs impact nine aspects of teacher development.The nine aspects are categorized into two groups.The first group, knowledge of teaching, refers to knowledge and skills that are directly connected to subject teaching.In contrast, aspects in the second group, continuous professional development, are not directly applicable to daily work but can be beneficial to sustaining professional growth.As shown in Table 2, the respondents agreed that the NTTP has at least moderate impacts on all nine aspects of development.
Table 3 shows the results of the multiple regression analysis of the nine aspects of teacher development.After the background variables of the respondents and the programs are controlled, it seems that the farther the location of the NTTP programs from the respondents' workplaces is, the less likely the respondents were to benefit in terms of knowledge of teaching, but the more likely they were to benefit in terms of continuous professional development.The following paragraphs analyze the reasons for the dichotomous impact of the NTTP on teacher development.

The Impact of Program Location on Knowledge of Teaching
The top half of Table 3 shows that the distance between the location of the NTTP program and the participant's workplace was negatively related to three of the four aspects of knowledge of teaching.One of the features of NTTP programs is their trainers.To ensure the quality of NTTP programs, the programs are only allowed to invite trainers from a list maintained by the Ministry of Education.The list is highly selective, and those who are qualified to be on the list are mainly top university professors and researchers, principals of highly ranked schools and the most famous teachers in China.This is quite different from non-NTTP programs.
The NTTP is different from other kinds of PD programs.
[T]he rank of experts that we are exposed to is different.The NTTP program that I participated in reserved about 17 days for intensive learning at a university in Beijing.During this period, almost every lecture was given by a leading professor.I think the very high standard for trainers is a unique advantage of the NTTP.(Deputy principal of a primary school in an eastern province) When program providers arrange school visits and lesson observations, the participating teachers gain access to the most prestigious schools and can observe the teaching of the most renowned teachers in the region.
We have connections to almost all reputable schools in the province. .How do we choose the schools for teachers to visit? .Most of the time, we choose schools of high quality or with specific expertise.For example, if a program focuses on the subject of chemistry, we choose a school known for its teaching in chemistry.(Program manager in an eastern province) In this way, teachers are able to access the latest developments in education and teaching that are otherwise inaccessible in their own workplaces.
The opportunity to get to know outside experts and to witness educational practices in the most prestigious schools is highly valuable for teachers from central and western provinces where local PD resources are limited.In the interviews, the interviewees often voiced complaints about the poor quality of local PD resources.
We have non-NTTP local programs during semesters and during every summer and winter vacation.However, we are generally unsatisfied with the trainers.Sometimes, what the trainers say is something we already knew.Other times, neither we nor the trainers understand the theories that are expected to be learned via the programs. .The trainers then read the theories according to the book.(English language teacher from a junior secondary school in a central province) However, the dilemma is that skills and experiences introduced at a distance from the participants' classrooms are hard to apply.This is particularly true when teachers from less developed regions participate in programs in the most developed cities and visit the best schools in these cities.For example, after visiting a famous school in Shanghai, a principal from a county in western China said in the interview that what he learned from the visit was inapplicable to his school.Parents in Shanghai were much more educated than those in his hometown.In Shanghai, parents were able to help with their children's learning.This allowed the school to save considerable time for organizing club events, such as basketball matches.In contrast, at his school, teachers had to spend all of their time teaching.He said in the interview, ''If we organize too many events, we probably can't even complete the (basic) teaching tasks.''This sentiment was echoed by the deputy principal of a junior secondary school in another county in western China, who said that only 10% of what he learned from the NTTP was applicable to his school.
One way to tackle the dilemma between limited local PD resources and the inapplicability of experiences from other counties or provinces is to improve the professional ability of local trainers.Localities select the best teachers to participate in cross-provincial and provincial programs and then ask them to serve as trainers in local NTTP programs.In these cases, the teachers participating in cross-provincial and provincial programs ''translate'' what they have learned into languages and practices that are understandable by their local colleagues.The interviewed teachers attending cross-provincial and provincial programs called this process ''secondary understanding'' to highlight their role as the intermediary between the NTTP and local teachers.The following excerpt is quoted from the interview with a teacher who worked as a local trainer after finishing a cross-provincial program.
Many frontline teachers love to attend my presentations because my presentations are supported by theories that I have learned from NTTP trainers, and I can connect the theories with our frontline teaching.So, the teachers preferred to attend my presentations when I came back from the NTTP (rather than participate in cross-provincial and provincial programs).(Chinese language teacher from a primary school in a western province.)

The Impact of Program Location on Continuous Professional Development
The impact of program location on continuous professional development shows an opposite tendency to its impact on knowledge of teaching.The further an NTTP provider was from the respondents' workplaces, the greater the respondents benefitted in four of the five aspects of continuous professional development.
Peer Network.The interviewees who participated in cross-provincial and provincial programs agreed that compared to non-NTTP programs, another core feature of the NTTP is the opportunity to get to know peers from other counties or provinces.In these programs, participants are usually grouped into small teams to carry out tasks, such as planning a lesson.They normally also live on university campuses during periods of intensive learning, which gives them rich opportunities to interact with and learn from each other.
[A]nother type of interaction is compulsory.For example, we happen to share a dormitory, right?Such arrangements may help expand my boundaries.If I only communicated with people who shared my hobbies and interests, I would always interact with the same type of teachers in the circle.In the NTTP programme, we were randomly grouped into teams, and each team had six or seven members.We were assigned to the same group.We took part in some activities together, and we had exchanges with each other.In this process, I probably learned something new.(Chinese language teacher from a senior high school in an eastern province) As explained later, the peer connections formed in cross-provincial and provincial programs greatly broaden teachers' horizons.In addition, during and after the programs, teachers, as local trainers, share information regarding lectures, open lessons and workshops that they chair via online and social media platforms to encourage their NTTP peers to participate.Some NTTP programme participants are very famous teachers in their hometowns.When they host seminars, they disseminate seminar notices through our WeChat community.NTTP peers who are interested then attend the seminars.(Programme manager from a university in an eastern province) Occasionally, teachers invite each other to host PD activities in the other's hometown.This not only provides teachers with additional PD opportunities but also further expands their networks outside their hometowns.
Conversely, teachers participating in local programs are from the same small community.They probably already know each other quite well.Because the number of new members is very limited, these networks may not be able to provide innovative perspectives and therefore have a tendency toward groupthink.
Our (NTTP programme) community has a dozen teachers.Because we often attend activities together in the city, we are familiar with each other.The NTTP is simply another platform for us to interact.(Mathematics teacher from a senior high school in an eastern province) Theories on Education and Teaching.The benefits for program participants in terms of learning educational and teaching theories are closely related to the intervention of universities.Lectures and workshops given by university academics and researchers usually introduce the latest developments in education and teaching.According to one university professor, considering the fact that teachers already possess rich teaching experience, they are actually in urgent need of theoretical guidance.Similarly, some of the interviewed teachers talked about the influences of theoretical learning, which provided them with an alternative perspective with which to reflect on their regular practices.
I did not pay much attention to PD before (attending the NTTP programme).I thought I was a teacher, and I must pay special attention to the practice of teaching.It was enough for me to deliver high-quality lessons.But when I participated in the programme at the university, I really felt it totally changed my mindset.I felt refreshed and felt that I was in urgent need of these theories.They gave me a sense of novelty.(English language teacher from a secondary school in a western province) However, for other teachers, particularly those from developing counties and rural areas, the theories presented by university professors are very hard to understand.
I have given lectures for several NTTP programmes in central and western provinces.I felt deeply confused during the lectures.Whatever I said, the participants just didn't understand.This was really a trouble.(NTTP expert, professor from a university in an eastern province) Here, again, what the teachers need is ''secondary understanding.''This may partly explain the distribution of program locations.As previously mentioned, most respondents participated in local programs.Considering that over 97% of the respondents were in the central and western regions, local programs may fit their needs better than cross-provincial and provincial programs.Because universities intervene less often in local programs than in nonlocal programs, teachers in local programs are not as open to educational theories as their counterparts in nonlocal programs.

Broadening of Educational Horizons and Enthusiasm for
Teaching.According to Tables 2 and 3, ''broadening of educational horizons'' received the highest rating among the nine aspects of teacher development, and the location of NTTP programs had the largest impact on this variable.Compared with local programs, cross-provincial and provincial programs have a much more heterogeneous body of participants.Although this composition is disadvantageous for the discussion of context-sensitive issues, it provides participants access to a variety of perspectives.
First, the teachers of cross-provincial and provincial programs work in different counties and even different provinces.They share their local educational experiences via formal discussions and informal conversations.This not only enriches teachers' reservoir of teaching skills but also helps them understand their own positions in a broader landscape of education and teaching.They then identify areas for improvement via comparison.
Only through the NTTP are we able to meet peers across the country.This allowed me to get to know the teaching of political sciences from a broader perspective.Take the education of the legal system as an example.I can get to know the development of legal education in different provinces and localities, and I can compare legal education in my city with the current tendency of legal education in China.This perspective offered by the NTTP is very special.(Political sciences teacher from a junior high school in an eastern city) Second, participants in cross-provincial and provincial programs usually teach at different levels of education.To cater to the demands of participants from various backgrounds, providers usually arrange visits to schools at different levels of education and observations of lessons given to different grades of students.Such opportunities are rare in local programs and non-NTTP programs, which often target teachers teaching the same subject for the same grade of students.Although the practices observed in cross-provincial and provincial programs are not directly applicable to the participants' classrooms, they offer the participants a chance to observe teaching in unfamiliar situations.This sometimes shocks the observers and has the potential to challenge their underlying beliefs about teaching.For example, one Chinese language teacher from a primary school recalled the change in her view of teaching after observing a Chinese language lesson in a secondary school as follows: From the perspective of a Chinese language teacher, I felt that sometimes our primary school classrooms might be too sentimental.Maybe we should teach in the same way as our counterparts do in secondary schools.Maybe we shouldn't think too simply of the children.Maybe we actually can teach the children how to write an essay in a more rational way.(Chinese language teacher from a primary school in an eastern city) The broadening of horizons via nonlocal programs also enhances teachers' enthusiasm for teaching because they discover new practices and realize that they could do their jobs better.In addition, cross-provincial and provincial programs give teachers a chance to be relieved from their normal working environments to refresh themselves.Almost all interviewed participants in crossprovincial and provincial programs confessed that when they felt burnt out, participating in NTTP programs remotivated them to teach.Such renewed enthusiasm prompts teachers to devote themselves to teaching, and many of them thereby have been awarded honourary titles, such as ''core teachers.'' We had been on the front line for a long time.We were quite contented with the status quo.After finishing the NTTP programme, I was awarded the title of 'core teacher'.Before that, I had never been awarded such a tile.I used to be an ordinary teacher.I am really very grateful to the NTTP programme.Suddenly, I have a goal to pursue, I have enthusiasm, I have direction, and I have been teaching in real earnest.(English language teacher from a junior secondary school in a central city) Enhanced enthusiasm for teaching was not mentioned in the interviews with local program participants, probably because the participants were surrounded by familiar situations and therefore were less likely to challenge taken-for-granted routines.After teaching for a certain period of time, teachers may need to leave their workplaces to refresh their teaching philosophy and skills.

Discussion and Implications
The relationship between the location of PD programs and its impact on teacher development is still not completely understood.Some researchers believe that the closer the interaction between teachers, their schools, and PD programs, the more likely it is that changes in classrooms will occur (Admiraal et al., 2016;Lee, 2007;Ling & Mackenzie, 2001;Lloyd & Davis, 2018;Margolis et al., 2017;Mueller & Welch, 2006;OECD, 2018;Opfer, 2016).However, such PD programs may eliminate alternative perspectives and constrain innovation (King, 2016;Lai, 2010;Qiao et al., 2018;Vangrieken et al., 2015;Yuan et al., 2018).In PD programs that are held in completely different environments from teachers' workplaces, teachers are exposed to different perspectives and resources, which can lead to creative practices (Chapman & Muijs, 2014;Somech & Drach-Zahavy, 2007;Vujicˇic´& Tambolasˇ, 2017).The problem is that the knowledge and skills acquired in these programs tend to be irrelevant to teachers' working contexts (Atay, 2006;Chapman & Muijs, 2014).
Based on qualitative and quantitative data from NTTP participants, this study investigates the impact of local and nonlocal PD programs on teachers' development.The findings confirm the pros and cons of local PD documented in the existing literature.As shown in Table 3, compared with provincial and cross-provincial programs, local programs are more likely to contribute to knowledge and skills that are directly connected to classroom teaching.The programs are rooted in the localities where teachers teach and use teacher-friendly languages to address problems in daily practice.Therefore, the participants regard these programs as relevant.What is learned from the programs can be easily applied to their work.However, because most trainers and all participants live in the same (small) community, the programs are less likely to expose teachers to new people and innovative perspectives.
The findings of this study also confirm some of the arguments in the existing literature concerning nonlocal PD.Provincial and cross-provincial programs broaden teachers' horizons by providing teachers with opportunities to network with interesting people, access the latest theories and research in education, and witness the practices of the most prestigious schools.However, due to notable differences in education among different localities, it could be difficult for teachers to apply, and even understand, the knowledge and skills offered by the programs.
This study argues that local and nonlocal programs are supplementary to each other and that teachers need access to both types of programs.However, the distribution of opportunities to participate in the two types of programs could be deployed differently by region.For schools and localities where local PD resources are rich and high in quality, the effect of additional local PD activities can be marginal.Therefore, teachers need opportunities to participate in nonlocal programs to expose themselves to interesting people and innovative ideas.For schools and localities where local PD resources are meagre and low in quality, the priority is to offer context-specific PD opportunities to deal with teachers' immediate demands.
The findings of this study differ from the existing literature in the following aspects.First, some researchers argue that nonlocal PD is ineffective because teachers do not know and trust each other (Vangrieken et al., 2017).However, in this study, teachers from different localities formed friendships and trust in provincial and crossprovincial programs.An important feature of these programs is the intensive face-to-face learning in the first few weeks.The participants not only attend lectures and complete learning tasks together but also live together on campus.Friendships and trust are quickly built and subsequently facilitated by online and social media platforms after the programs end.Information and ideas concerning teaching circulate among the participants, and the network expands further when some participants are introduced by their NTTP peers to teachers in other localities.This finding highlights the importance of intensive face-to-face interaction in PD programs, especially in the first few weeks when the participants do not know each other well.Teacher trainers in nonlocal programs can arrange program schedules to make teachers physically meet more often despite the inconvenience that this may introduce to teachers' timetables (Siko & Hess, 2014).
Second, some researchers criticize nonlocal PD for being general (Chapman & Muijs, 2014).This study argues that ''general'' instead of ''context-specific'' PD exposes teachers to unfamiliar situations.This can cause a positive kind of ''culture shock'' that challenges teachers' routinized habits and transforms their underlying philosophies of teaching.Therefore, in both local and nonlocal programs, teacher trainers may need to balance the applicability and novelty of the program content to help teachers create critical distance from their daily work.
Third, this study finds an additional impact of nonlocal PD programs that is rarely mentioned in the existing literature.Provincial and cross-provincial programs refresh and revitalize teachers by making the participants identify areas for improvement via comparison and by removing them from routine work for several weeks.This finding implies that experienced teachers may need to be regularly relieved from work to be refreshed and remotivated to teach.
Finally, this study shows that both local and nonlocal PD programs can contribute to teacher development if they are well designed.A typical NTTP program reflects at least three of the five features of the effective mode of PD. ''Traditional'' forms of lectures and workshops are combined with ''reform types'' of PD activities such as team projects, peer collaboration, and prolonged follow-up support.In these cases, regardless of the location of the program, NTTP participants reap at least moderate benefits for their professional growth, as shown in Table 2.This finding indicates that the quality of PD is more important than the mode of PD.Traditional modes of PD could employ interactive activities, whereas new modes of PD could be fairly conservative in nature (Nir & Bogler, 2008).Teacher trainers need to be familiar with both modes of PD and choose activities that are suitable for specific PD purposes.

Table 1 .
Background Information of the Respondents and the NTTP Programs in Which They Participated.

Table 2 .
The Impact of the NTTP on the Respondents' Development.

Table 3 .
Results of the Multiple Regression Analysis of the Impact of the Program Location on the Respondents' Development.