Teacher professional development (PD) aims to improve teaching and learner outcomes, but many PD initiatives fail to achieve these goals. Research suggests that effective PD should include content knowledge enhancement, active engagement, coherence, collaboration, and extended duration. However, implementing these elements in traditional face-to-face PD is often hindered by geographic, financial, and time constraints, prompting a shift towards online PD. Despite its potential, online PD faces challenges, such as teachers' negative attitudes towards using technology for their development.

To address these challenges, researchers suggest combining online and face-to-face PD into a blended approach. Proposed models emphasize the importance of considering teachers' experiences and learning preferences. However, it remains unclear which mode is preferred by teachers in rural schools, where out-of-field teaching and teacher shortages are common. This is significant because many studies experience difficulties in replicating these different modes of PD across various contexts and achieving consistent results.

This study explores the preferred PD mode among novice teachers in rural Mpumalanga. Novice teachers were chosen due to the transition challenges they face, which often lead to stress, burnout, poor learner performance, and attrition. Three novice Physical Sciences teachers with less than three years of experience participated in a blended PD intervention. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed using open coding, focusing on four categories: attendance, flexibility, individual support, and engagement.

The study found that online workshops had low attendance due to high data costs and poor connectivity. While online workshops offered flexibility, allowing teachers to join with their learners, they lacked individual support and active engagement compared to face-to-face workshops. Teachers were receptive to both modes of delivery, particularly those familiar with online learning. The findings suggest that blended PD initiatives in rural schools should provide digital tools to increase online attendance, promote self-paced learning to address connectivity issues, establish mentorship programmes for individual support, and align PD content with teachers’ needs to encourage meaningful engagement.

Keywords: Blended professional development initiatives, novice teachers, blended teacher development workshops, rural schools.