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This paper uses the case of a secondary English department in Ontario, Canada, to examine the constraints that academic departments face in transforming themselves from communities of practice into learning communities. The article proposes theoretical considerations and concrete strategies to assist academic departments in overcoming constraints to learning within an era of increasing standardisation and accountability.

This study describes the development of two instruments, the Principles of Scientific Inquiry- Teacher (PSI-T) and the Principles of Scientific Inquiry-Student (PSI-S), to investigate the extent to which students are engaged in scientific inquiry. As a result of the instrument development process employed, each finalized instrument consisted of 20-items separated into five categories. Based on the analyses completed, the instruments appear to be useful instruments for use in comprehensive assessment packages for assessing the extent to which students are experiencing inquiry in science classrooms.

This study explores the use of electronic journals to support beginning teachers in developing reflection on teaching within peer support networks. The study takes place within the context of the ongoing Pilot Project on Teacher Induction in post-primary schools in Ireland. Results show little evidence of the development of a more reflective approach attributable to the maintenance of a blog. However review of earlier postings led to some reflective personal and group dialogue.

In this paper, the author examines taken-for-granted teacher education practices. Furthermore, the author also challenges the deficit model of instruction, which views future teachers as nonparticipants in the creation of the language of their own education. In the examination of these ideas, the author suggests that critical self-narratives are an essential part of professional growth and humanistic pedagogy. At the end, the author describes six personal pedagogical principles that function as the fertile ground in which coconstructed education can flourish.

This article examines the experiences of one career change student teacher, Michelle. Furthermore, the article explores the ways in which she constructed her new professional identity as a student teacher. Findings were analysed and discussed with reference to Lave and Wenger’s (1991) framework of legitimate peripheral participation and Wenger’s (1998) communities of practice, and with recourse to the relevant literature.

The current study explores macro-level computer-supported collaborative learning scripts as a pedagogical method to facilitate collaboration. This case-study examines the difference between the “ideal” script and the “actual, realized” script to find out how collaboration differs between different groups. This study demonstrates that macro-scripts support collaboration by introducing the reason for interaction and by helping students solve learning tasks.

This article reports on a programme in which senior advisers from different regions in Croatia developed action research projects in Croatian schools. The authors wanted to learn: How educational action research might be used by advisers and teachers in Croatia; and how educational action research is understood in this context. The authors found that the concept of action research was thoroughly understood by nearly all the advisers; the principles of action research were produced evidence of practical change, collaboration and mutual understanding.

The purpose of this study was to determine the level of intercultural sensitivity of Hong Kong secondary school teachers. Three hundred and eighty-six serving teachers were surveyed. Findings revealed that the majority of the teachers were operating in the beginning stage, denial/defense, of the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS). They saw the world from an ethnocentric perspective and held a negative view on evaluating cultural differences.

This study aimed to investigate the views of prospective teachers on the use of advanced calculators with Computer Algebra Systems (CAS) in algebra instruction. Participants in this study were secondary prospective mathematics teachers at a university in Ankara, Turkey. The students in this study had no prior experience with CAS. An open-ended questionnaire and group interviews revealed prospective teachers’ views and beliefs about when and why they prefer three possible uses of CAS— black box, white box, or Symbolic Math Guide (SMG).

The purpose of this study was two-fold: (1) to test the factor structure of a recently developed Norwegian scale for measuring teacher self-efficacy, and (2) to explore relations between teachers' perception of the school context, teacher self-efficacy, collective teacher efficacy, teacher burnout, teacher job satisfaction, and teachers' beliefs that factors external to teaching puts limitations to what they can accomplish. Norwegian teachers in elementary school and middle school participated in this study.

The authors’ goal was to understand the contrasting discourses used by teacher educators in talking about curriculum development, on the grounds that such discourses frame interpretations that direct the implementation of teacher education as a whole. Five contrasting interpretative repertoires were found. The authors illustrate these and discuss what they imply for the development of teacher education.

This documentary account describes professional development for teachers in the USA serving culturally and linguistically diverse students. The goal of the project was to monitor effectiveness of training in Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) and to assess the value of cognitive coaching. Findings indicated workshops were effective and produced strong commitment to the model, but resulted in a disappointing level of implementation without a coaching phase.

This research examines perceptions of special education teachers pertaining to mathematics instruction as learners and teachers throughout a semester-long mathematics methods course. The participants were eighteen alternate-entrant special education teachers who were enrolled in the required elementary school mathematics methods course for their program of study. Data were collected via mathematics autobiographical narratives, recollections of the participants’ experiences as K-12 learners of mathematics, and information pertaining to elements of their ideal mathematics classroom.

In this article, the author discusses the professional literature on culturally responsive higher education training. The author focuses on the intended outcomes of professional development, including faculty knowledge, skills, and dispositions. Once the intended outcomes for professional development have been established, activities that best meet these outcomes can be designed and implemented.