Professional organizations can play an important role in the lives and work of educators. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore Alabama educators' experiences with membership in statewide professional organizations and to determine what benefits, if any, members feel their organizations provide them. Four main benefits that…

Equity is an important topic in school context globally because international migration is rapidly diversifying schools and classrooms across the world. Teacher quality is seen strongly related to student outcomes than demographic characteristics of students, and therefore important for achieving equity. This explorative study investigates the…

Supporting high quality teaching is pivotal in improving children's outcomes. Indeed, research tells us that high quality teaching can narrow the disadvantage gap. It is therefore hugely encouraging to see a host of new initiatives and reforms that recognise the importance of teacher quality such as the Early Career Framework and the new National…

Research shows that having a multilingual background has many advantages. However, several studies indicate that students' multilingual backgrounds are not used as resources in the classroom. Most classroom studies on multilingualism have been conducted at mainstream schools, and a few in classes for newly arrived students at mainstream schools.…

The use of visual representations (VRs) in mathematics is a strongly recommended practice in special education. Although recommended, little is known about special educators' knowledge of and instructional emphasis about VRs. Therefore, in this study, the authors examined special educators' own knowledge of and their instructional emphasis with…

Recognising teachers' knowledge as one of the main factors influencing their practices and student learning, we aim to contribute to obtaining a better and deeper understanding of the specificities of teachers' mathematical knowledge. A case study involving one 8th-grade Chilean mathematics teacher is presented in the context of rational numbers.…

The interest in teachers' discourses and vocabularies has for a long time been studied under the rubric of knowledge, most notably teachers' professional knowledge. This interest can be traced back to Shulman's distinction between different kinds of teacher knowledge and Schwab's interest in the role of practical reasoning and judgement in…

Intercultural education (ICE) is a priority for schools and schooling systems worldwide. While extensive policy and academic literature exists that describes how ICE should be done in schools, relatively little has been published about the pragmatics of implementing and enacting ICE, despite evidence that principals, teachers and schools feel ill…

The implementation of educational reforms requires behavioral changes from the teachers involved. Theories on successful behavioral change prescribe the following conditions: teachers need to possess the necessary knowledge and skills, form strong positive intentions to perform the new behavior, and have a supporting environment for change.…

Preparation and provision for transition between primary and secondary school get mixed reviews across all subjects. The literature suggests that modern languages is an area deserving particular attention. There are examples of good practice in transition, but the general picture is, at best, patchy. Researchers [e.g. Blondin, C., M. Candelier, P.…

A common critique of teacher education centres on the gap between coursework and schools, with ample evidence that novice teachers seldom bring ambitious forms of instruction into classroom placements. We describe a 6-year design experiment conducted in a university teacher education program secondary mathematics methods course focused squarely on…

Educators across the nation have been responding to the push for content-area literacy instruction in their systems. While the press for higher academic standards has sharpened national focus on the reading of complex, discipline-specific informational texts, educators have been grappling with how to help science, social studies, and vocational…

Collaborative design positively affects both professional development and the implementation of curriculum change, because teachers develop competencies and practice and develop ownership of the change. The current study was aimed to explore what empirical evidence is available about processes that take place when teachers co-design and how these…

Teacher transition between year levels is common practice in many primary schools in New Zealand; however, it is not always perceived as an opportunity for teachers' continuing professional development (CPD). This article reports on a case study that explored four primary school teachers' experiences of transition between year levels. The teachers…

This study investigates teachers' professionalism and professional development practices which still have lower quality based on the law and do not produce an improved performance yet in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. This investigation focuses on teachers' behavior-attitude, pedagogic skills, and diversity learning activities through effective…