The primary focus of this Executive Leadership Portfolio (ELP) is to investigate whether teachers who actively participate in professional development designed to model best practices and explore digital technology would incrementally change their instructional moves to include these practices and technologies. The literature presented within this…

A growing number of schools are implementing PLCs to address school improvement, staff engage with data to identify student needs and determine instructional interventions. This is a starting point for engaging in the iterative process of learning for the teach in order to increase student learning (Hord & Sommers, 2008). The iterative process…

In this article we report on our examination of the challenges faced by four successful and long-standing national STEM reform communities. Drawing primarily on interview data from a large-scale, multi-year study informed by literature on "communities of practice" (CoPs) (Wenger et al. 2002), we describe five categories of challenges…

This study explores how and under which conditions preservice secondary science teachers (PSTs) engage in effective planning practices that incorporate intellectually challenging tasks into lessons. Drawing upon a situative perspective on learning, eight PSTs' trajectories of participation in communities of practice are examined with a focus on…

The purpose of this study is to describe an online community-based English extensive reading contest to investigate whether the participants' intrinsic, extrinsic, and interpersonal motivations and learning results show significant gender differences. A total of 501 valid questionnaires (285 females and 216 males) from Taiwanese high school…

This study examines how involvement in four cross-institutional STEM faculty communities of practice is associated with local departmental and institutional change for faculty members belonging to these communities. It is informed by the communities of practice and change in higher education literature and utilizes data gathered through a survey…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to consider an expanded vision of professional development for embedding education for sustainability (EfS) in a higher education institution. Through an exploration of a community of practice at the University of Tasmania, this paper examines how collaborative peer learning can sustain and promote continued…

The purpose of this study was to investigate and identify the factors that either support or inhibit learning transfer among educators within K-12 professional learning communities (PLCs) as well as to obtain a better understanding of how adult education principles relate to teacher learning and job satisfaction within this environment. Although…

This study uses boundary crossing in activity theory as one normative framework for opening a deliberative inquiry in new discursive spaces to elicit "gender awareness" in teachers' practices. We illustrate this framework by drawing from data in one European teacher education project. Seven case studies were conducted and data were…

While current reform efforts press for ambitious changes to teachers' instructional practice, teachers' instructional beliefs are also consequential in such efforts as beliefs shape teachers' instructional practice and their responses to instructional reforms. This article examines the relationship between teachers' instructional ties and their…

Audience can serve as powerful motivation in learning--and network technologies have the potential to greatly broaden audience for the processes and products of learning. But these new opportunities for audience are accompanied by new challenges. In this paper, we examine and problematize the notion and role of audience in learning by presenting a…

The purpose of this study was to discover how three person teams use game templates (trivia, role-play, or scavenger hunt) to socially construct knowledge. The researcher designed an experimental Internet-based database to facilitate teams creating each game. Teams consisted of teachers, students, hobbyist, and business owners who shared similar…

This mixed-method study explored the characteristics of professional learning communities (PLCs) in Chinese schools. Informed by the existing literature on PLCs, the authors conducted a questionnaire survey of teachers in seven schools in Shanghai to explore the characteristics of Chinese PLCs. Follow-up qualitative interviews were also conducted…

Community colleges are open access institutions, striving to meet the needs of all students regardless of level of academic preparation or achievement. Community college student enrollment continues to rise; however, the success of community college students has not increased accordingly. A significant number of students begin at community…

Teacher collaboration has long been considered to be a vehicle for educational improvement. Meanwhile, some teachers find themselves disconnected and isolated from their colleagues, in part due to the roles they serve in schools. There is little research information on the social networks of special education teachers. This study is intended to…