The potential for professional development initiatives to improve quality in ECEC is an area of increasing international interest. This article presents insights from an ethnography into the manifestation of a two-year practice-based continuous professional development initiative (Educational Quality in Daycare: EQD) informed by the Abecedarian…

This dissertation investigates the impact of a pedagogical class and a Community of Practice (CoP) on the implementation of reading strategies by faculty at a community college. It explores the types of reading strategies instructors plan to use, their integration into classroom practices, the factors enabling or impeding this implementation, and…

Purpose: Whilst professional learning communities (PLCs) have been widely explored at the school level, they have received less attention at the departmental level. The study takes the variance between departments and the role of departmental teacher leaders into consideration, and the relationships amongst departmental-level PLC dimensions, two…

Despite a burgeoning body of research on teacher identity development, little is known about how incongruities between the ideal and real-life teaching practices create identity tensions. The present study adopted an arts-based approach and examined teachers' ideal and actual teaching practices, and the associated identity tensions and related…

Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) are valuable spaces for collaboration and reflection to promote the transformation of teaching practice and resilience to change. In PLCs that are sustained over time, trust-building is a key element. In Latin America, school systems and educational models are based on mistrust, which in Chile is consistent…

Teacher leaders are increasingly leading learning conversations in professional learning communities (PLCs) in schools in several parts of the world today, but there is little empirical knowledge of teacher leadership in PLC conversations. Thus, this article aims to enhance such knowledge, particularly the development of teacher leadership in PLC…

This instrumental case study explored 10 English as a foreign language (EFL) instructors' perceptions and experiences of participating in an asynchronous online professional development (OPD) program. The study aimed to explore instructors' professional development (PD) needs, the factors influencing their participation in OPD, and the perceived…

Elementary teachers continue to endure increased pressure as additional weights are pressed from state requirements and recommendations, local and national social burdens heighten, and confrontation with increased student needs persist; yet support structures devised for teachers to be able to enact transformational leaps lack. Questions guiding…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine how participants experienced and perceived an M.Ed. program that had a school-based design. In particular, the authors sought to understand: (1) how participants experienced being in a school-based cohort and (2) whether and how participants experienced the three designated tenets of the M.Ed.…

This dissertation explores the experiences of disabled students in higher education and strategies for creating more accessible learning environments. Despite increasing enrollment, disabled students remain marginalized in diversity efforts, with current approaches focusing on individual accommodations rather than systemic barriers. The research…

This dissertation explores the experiences of disabled students in higher education and strategies for creating more accessible learning environments. Despite increasing enrollment, disabled students remain marginalized in diversity efforts, with current approaches focusing on individual accommodations rather than systemic barriers. The research…

School turnaround initiatives are top-down in nature and tend to relegate students and teachers to passive roles rather than empowering them as central change agents in school improvement. The purpose of this qualitative Action Research study was to investigate and deepen the use of student feedback to improve teaching and learning experiences and…

The professional development (PD) of early childhood educators (ECEs) is key to childcare quality. The Professional Learning Community (PLC) model has been well-researched in K-12 settings and is found to have advantages over traditional models of PD; thus, it holds promise for educators in other settings such as early childhood education centers.…

This dissertation examined the impact of the CREST-MECIS community of practice on K-12 STEM teachers and undergraduate and graduate students, addressing the urgent need for innovative approaches in science education to meet the challenges of the 21st century. The study was grounded in response to three primary problem statements: 1) the…