Purpose: Although there has been increasing optimism about the potential for social media platforms such as Twitter to support educators' professional learning, it is yet unclear whether such promises hold true. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to explore school administrators' use of Twitter for professional learning.…

E-learning has become one of the primary ways to deliver education around the globe. Research is keeping pace with the use of various techno-aids as educators evaluate how to effectively use these aids in an ever-changing e-classroom. Adding to this body of work, and in assessing the effectiveness of techno-tools, this study evaluates meaningful…

Instructional designers need to be able to assess the level of knowledge construction generated by participants of a virtual learning community (VLC). Such participants include the learners engaged in threaded discussions within online courses. Assessing the level of knowledge construction enables course revisions that scaffold such knowledge…

This case study research reports on elementary (grade 8) and secondary school (grade 9) teachers' participation in job-embedded, professional learning and engagement in collaborative inquiry. Teachers constructed an inquiry-oriented media literacy unit following the collaborative inquiry model. The current study sought to investigate how…

The professional learning communities and communities of practice approaches in the arena of education appear to hold considerable promise for sustainable school improvement. These approaches flow from the assumption that teacher's collaboration is central to transform a school into a learning organization. They also provide opportunities for…

This empirical study attempted to investigate the effect of using online communities of practice in teacher education on pre-service teachers' critical thinking dispositions. California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory and the comments posted to the online community of practice were used as the data collection tools. Results showed that…

Many secondary math and science teachers don't understand the nature and application of engineering adequately to transfer that understanding to their students. Research is needed that investigates and illuminates the process and characteristics of development that addresses this gap. This mixed-method study examines the developmental experiences…

Using data in a professional learning community is a promising form of professional development. In this study, we followed a data team of teacher educators, who systematically tried to improve the education of student teachers (by decreasing first year drop-out). By conducting a single case study, we investigated the data team participants'…

Digital technologies make possible new avenues for sharing and accessing literacy research and practices worldwide. Among the myriad of options available, web seminars have become popular online learning venues. The current investigation is part of Global Conversations in Literacy Research (GCLR), a longitudinal and qualitative study now in its…

This article details the results of an action research study which investigated how teachers used online learning community spaces to develop and support their teaching and learning of the Jewish Court of All Time (JCAT), a web-mediated, character-playing, simulation game that engages participants with social, historical and cultural curricula.…

This paper begins the exploration of disruption as an analytical construct that allows for the investigation of how individual learning and changes in local practice mutually influence the other within a purposefully designed learning context. We seek to describe the types of learning experiences that emerged using disruptive pedagogies and tools…

Multimedia expands the opportunity for graduate teachers to develop a community of learners in an online reading clinic as they reflect and collaborate on a variety of reading and writing experiences during an online lesson study of a comprehensive corrective reading lesson. This qualitative method study explores (a) the pedagogical shifts of…

Using a case study design and ethnographic methods, this research investigated the interactions of a group of high school mathematics teachers who collaborated daily on issues related to curricular and pedagogical reforms. The members of the collaboration team implemented these reforms with the goal of supporting all students' learning of 1st-year…

Critically reflective dialogues (CRD) are important for knowledge sharing and creating meaning in communities. CRD includes different aspects: being open about mistakes, critical opinion sharing, asking for and giving feedback, experimentation, challenging groupthink and research utilisation. In this article we explore whether CRD aspects change…

Secondary school students in the 21st-century are faced with political, economic, and social trends that often pose crises such as performing below levels of proficiency on state mandated assessments. Restructuring school cultures within various schools and districts were noted through the establishment of professional learning communities (PLCs).…