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The view of teacher development discussed in this paper was developed from the data and data analysis of the Learning in Science Project (Teacher Development). This three year research project (1990-1992) was funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Education and investigated the development of some forty-eight New Zealand primary and high school teachers of science as they learnt new teaching activities that enabled them to take into account students' thinking as researched by the previous Learning in Science Projects. The three aspects of teacher development discussed in this paper arose from a consideration of the teachers' self-report data, the author's experiences in teacher development and the current literature. This paper describes teacher development as professional, social and personal development. The initial portion of the paper considers these three aspects of development using illustrations from the research project's data. The second part of the paper focuses on the implications of this view of teacher development for the implementation of curriculum policy into classroom practice and for the ongoing contribution of teachers to the development of curriculum policy. Show less