Appraisal processes are a requirement for professionals working in the education sector. Often appraisal processes do not focus on strengths, rather, it becomes a process of meeting pre-determined requirements. This article takes a strength-based approach to appraisal and discusses a study which pilots the use of an Appreciative Growth Cycle…

Background: Issues of social justice require the understanding and intervention of teachers across all subject areas. Teachers must be positioned to uphold fairness for all individuals in their classes while considering the disparities of wealth, opportunities, and social privileges that may impact the student experience. This paper explores the…

Teachers seek and require meaningful professional development opportunities to truly grow in the profession. Teacher inquiry, or teacher research, is one way to accomplish professional development goals. Teacher inquiry is thought of as individualized, personalized, and meaningful professional development (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999). In this…

This study examines how elementary preservice teachers (PSTs) develop the capacity to design inquiry-based lessons in social studies and how this capacity changes over time. Using convergent parallel mixed methods, the findings indicate that PSTs had inherent and varied content design approaches fitting their perception of lesson design as they…

Although writing is often used for personal reflection in teacher education, it is less commonly leveraged to imagine educational futures (Gilligan, 2020)--particularly those centered on collective liberation. Amid intersecting social crises, however, imagining futures is critically important (Ladson-Billings, 2021), and writing is a crucial step…

Uncertainty is a key feature of philosophising with children. It is central to the theory and methodology of philosophical inquiry and the educational assumptions underlying it. Uncertainty also presents a specific challenge for pupils and teachers undertaking philosophical inquiry in the classroom, because mainstream education is mostly based on…

Practitioner inquiry has become part of the research tradition in many teacher professional development programmes across the world and allows teachers to conduct research into their own practices by engaging in systematic inquiry into their personal classroom practices. In this paper, we explore the inquiry reflections of two teachers that…

Nearly forty years ago, Stenhouse argued that the function of the curriculum was to stimulate teachers' everyday reflection about and learning from practice. This suggestion, alongside his support for teachers as researchers, aligns with the Welsh Government's commitment to build an evidence-informed profession as part of ongoing major education…

This article describes a reflective process, influenced by collaborative autoethnography and poetic inquiry, and provides an opportunity for replication at other sites. The process illuminated a workgroup's power to enhance professional lives in support of students, seeking to harness collective power to make space for critical discussions as well…

This article draws on the research findings of a case study at Greerton Early Learning Centre in Aotearoa, New Zealand, utilising data from the teachers' research inquiries into their professional practice. Teachers' inquiries included Learning Stories -- a research-based sociocultural narrative assessment approach -- written for children and…

Teachers in professional development (PD) programs need time to adopt, enact and reflect on what they are learning in the PD within their own situations. To encourage reflective implementation and adaptation of ideas and practices promoted in the PD studied in this article, participants were asked to engage in several small action research…

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.…

The aim of the study is to examine the relationship between preschool teachers' reflective thinking tendencies and children's creativity. The study is in general screening model and was conducted with preschool teachers, and normally developing children attending kindergarten, primary school and secondary school in Konya city center in the…

In this paper, I share results of collaborative inquiry with youth and teachers into how the arts can create more relational learning spaces in the classroom. I offer a framework for relational teaching and learning through the arts guided by the questions: Who am I? Who are you? And who are we? Through these dimensions, I explore how arts-based…

The aim of this study is to discuss the role of teachers in reflective teaching. The scope of this study is focused on explanations of reflective teaching from three experts. Reflective teaching is a holistic thought that enables a teacher to make choices and take alternative actions and allows teachers to think to improve teaching and learning…