Designing professional development that effectively supports teachers in learning new and often challenging practices remains a dilemma for teacher educators. Within the context of current reform efforts in science education, such as the "Next Generation Science Standards," teacher educators are faced with managing the dilemma of how to…

There are movements internationally towards curricula that incorporate values and citizenship education. In Australia, this movement has been illustrated with the adoption of a national curriculum in values education. This has arisen from the perceived need for citizens to hold values around the rights and responsibilities of functioning within a…

Background: Vocational education in Australia and elsewhere has a history of being gendered and classed, thereby limiting the post-school options of students undertaking this form of study. Drawing on Foucauldian theory, the authors used Gore's eight techniques of power to examine the micro-functioning of power relations at two case sites.…

This paper investigates the complex interactions that occur as teachers meet online to justify and negotiate their assessment judgements of student work across relatively large and geographically dispersed populations. Drawing from sociocultural theories of learning and technology, the technology is positioned as playing a role in either…

This paper draws on early data from a cross-Canada research project in which researchers at six Faculties of Education have been engaged in introducing picture books with multiple and diverse representations of Canadians to classes of pre-service teachers, inviting them to explore the pedagogical possibilities of the picture books and to discuss…

A team of secondary school language teachers and a teacher trainer developed a new method for Dutch writing instruction. The principles underlying the method were derived from insights regarding activating instruction and self-directed student learning. The development entailed two phases. In the first phase, the exploration of actual problems in…

This study examines online messages in a discussion forum that a group of K-12 history teachers used to discuss curriculum implementations as part of their professional development. It has 3 main research foci. First, it focuses on identifying the types of assistances provided to the teachers in an online forum. Second, it examines teachers'…

Background: Although much has been written about the ways in which new technology might transform educational practice, particularly in the area of literacy learning, there is relatively little empirical work that explores the possibilities and problems--or even what such a transformation might look like in the classroom. 3D virtual worlds offer a…