Implementation of SMART Teaching 3.0 : Mobile-Based Self-Directed EFL Teacher Professional Development

Motivated by the paradigm shift from top-down, institution-centered teacher training to bottom-up, learner-centered professional development in teacher education, this study involved the design and implementation of SMART Teaching 3.0, an online, open-learning course for EFL teacher professional development. This program was designed to be self-directed, motivating, applicable, rich, and technologysupported. It was further distributed to 149 English teachers for five months for testing. Data were collected from various sources such as website statistics, comments, weekly journals and interviews. Overall, the results confirmed the effectiveness of the five key features but to different degrees. The participants joined and participated in the program without any requirement or incentives. They perceived the needs-based content as being motivating, although they still wanted updates and an expansion of the content. Some of them applied what they learned in the program to their own classes. Finally, the mobilebased program enabled teachers to use the program without time and place constraints. However, the issue of the sustainability of self-directed learning was raised in the process of implementation. Several suggestions were made to solve the issue.