Seven "habits of mind" -- ways of thinking -- create strong school cultures that invite new and veteran teachers into professional conversations to improve teaching. These habits are: remaining open to continuous learning; thinking about thinking; figuring things out; communicating; creating, imagining, and innovating; taking responsible…

With the ease of using information technology tools, the explosive growth of smartphone applications (apps), and the rise of learning communities on social media, the acceptance of learning communities has become one of the most significant challenges for higher education institutions in Taiwan. In order to better understand teachers'…

Research shows that Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) foster teachers' professional learning. However, there is little knowledge about their implementation among early childhood (EC) teachers in Chilean and Latin American contexts. This article seeks to characterize two PLCs composed of EC teachers and to analyse, from the participants'…

The study reported in this paper applies the commognitive theory as a lens to study teacher learning in lesson study to better understand how and why teachers learn from lesson study. Video recordings were made from reflection meetings in three lesson study cycles with a group of four Norwegian lower secondary school teachers, one person from the…

This article reports on the findings from a technology-enhanced teacher learning project where the SETTVEO app (Self Evaluation of Teacher Talk through Video Enhanced Observation) was used to support teachers' reflective practices and professional development. Participants in the project were a group of 40 student teachers (ST) from Hong Kong, who…

Some researchers in mathematics education have studied the decisions professors make during classroom context activities. These decisions are explained by several factors: 1) how professors conceive the structure of mathematics; 2) what they know about the mathematical content; and, 3) what they consider the best didactic strategies to improve…

We studied two iterations of an online course provided to rural mathematics teachers. The online courses, which involved primarily synchronous activity, emphasized high-leverage discourse practices. We applied a community of inquiry framework, which emphasizes deep intellectual work, and its three tenets: cognitive presence, social presence, and…

The aim of this study is to explain how to shape the lesson study designed for improving mathematics teachers' knowledge of student thinking and to uncover the evidences of the mathematics teachers' knowledge of student thinking in their lessons. The lesson study composed of three cycles with five stages was carried out with three mathematics…

We argue in this paper that the experience of reading is an intricate and dynamic weaving of connections much like the tentative construction of a spider's web. We also use the metaphor of the web to examine a professional learning experience for Australian secondary school English teachers who over the course of a year, and by working in…

This paper describes a faculty development project in which 12 teacher educators used the Cognitive Coaching model to engage in critical reflections about their teaching. Each identified an aspect of their teaching they wanted to improve and a colleague to serve as coach. Participants engaged in Cognitive Coaching cycles, consisting of planning…

The growing perception of professional learning communities as an effective professional development approach needs to be supported with knowledge of how such communities create learning opportunities for teachers. Activities in professional learning communities are underpinned by collegial conversations that foster learning, and in this article…

The purpose of this study was to determine if and how engagement with an online community supports the development of three attributes identified by Wilhelm (2014) that teachers need to have in order to consistently select and implement cognitively demanding tasks, including mathematical knowledge for teaching, visions of high quality mathematics…

The growth of online learning and the demand for quality education has prompted universities to investigate innovative approaches for providing students with a more interactive, engaging and authentic learning experience. Frameworks such as Garrison, Anderson and Archer?s (2001) community of inquiry (CoI) model have been widely used in the design…

Prompted by calls for research on technology-focused professional development, this ethnographic case study investigates how teachers' participation in learning communities may influence technology integration within the secondary English curriculum. In this article, I draw on educational psychology, cognitive anthropology, and sociolinguistics to…

Based on a qualitative case study that examined elementary teachers' understandings of a professional development policy, we question the conceptual disconnection between professional learning and professional practices in some conceptualizations of professional learning communities. We analyse the research data using Actor-Network Theory and…