Over the years, I've been investigating capacity for learning to understand under what conditions it's seeded, flourishes and is sustainable. Drawing on my own and others' research and knowledge, I've supported school and system leaders internationally in endeavours to create and sustain capacity for learning. My sense is that everyone engaged in…

According to Jim Knight, learning something new--such as a new instructional approach or other innovation--and applying it in practice is complex and involves adaptations that take time. Knight describes the five stages he believes people go through in learning and practicing any innovation, from "non-use," gradually up to the stage of…

Success of curriculum reforms calls for both collaborative learning and unlearning processes. Focusing on the latter, school doubting process, an innovative term, is used in this paper as an active framework for organisational unlearning through which educators question their existing mind-sets and unfreeze old approaches to teaching and learning.…

Implementing inclusive education requires on-going commitment to teachers' professional learning. One way of implementing professional learning is to develop learning communities based on Lave and Wenger's ideas of situated learning and learning as social practice. Learning communities, drawing on models of Professional Learning Communities and…

The training of teachers in South Africa is fragmented and unstable with little systemic response from the government in the early years. This amplifies the need for initial professional qualifications to provide adequate opportunities to "transform" teachers' thinking and action to meet contextual demands. The aim is to unpack the…

As instructional reforms are shifting focus from reading and math achievement towards social-emotional learning and challenging coursework that prepares students for college, careers, and citizenship, this study addresses how leaders in two school districts actively served as mid-level implementers of global education, an instructional reform that…

Background: South African schooling is caught in a vicious cycle, characterised by weak initial teacher education (ITE) and weaker-than-average learning outcomes, resulting in low teacher status and attempts to reform schooling by means of continuous professional development (CPD). Aim: The paper attempts to understand the reasons for poor…

This article studies issues of coloniality in so-called capacity-building projects between universities in Africa and Scandinavia. Even fifty years after independence, the African higher education landscape is a product of the colonial powers and subsequent uneven power relations, as argued by a number of researchers. The uneven geography and…

This exciting book explores how leaders have implemented, sustained, and pushed innovative, deeper learning opportunities in their school settings. Across the United States and around the world, the concept of a school is growing more action-oriented, performance-focused, digitally relevant, and democratically infused. In this book, you'll hear…

Just as a compass orients a traveller, the OECD Learning Compass 2030 indicates the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values students need not just to weather the changes in our environment and in our daily lives, but to help shape the future. The Learning Compass 2030 is composed of seven elements: (1) core foundations; (2) transformative…

Non-Governmental Organizations play an indispensable role in the development process in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is evident in the educational sector where most major donor organizations have increased the resources apportioned through NGOs to implement their educational programmes. However, it is sad to indicate that these interventions appear…

In a rapidly changing world, students' success depends upon the schools' capacity to deal with their specific instructional needs. Thus, effective teaching plays the role of a unique protective factor that may reduce and even close the achievement gap. Two broad questions structure this study: What is the research contribution to teacher quality…

Background: Given the persistent gap among majority and minority students in international measures of student outcomes, there is growing attention and research focused on teacher knowledge, learning and professional development. Culturally responsive practice has been posited as one way to ameliorate disparities in outcomes. Proponents of…

Over the last decade, Papua New Guinea (PNG) has pursued educational reform in elementary teacher education. Because elementary teachers and teacher education are central to the reform agenda, there is a need to gain empirical evidence about how PNG teacher trainers' understandings about learning and teaching impact on their practice. The study…