Using situated learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and communities of practice (Wenger, 1998) as our theoretical framework, we focused on two female graduate students in applied linguistics as each attempted to negotiate memberships in multiple communities during an international exchange program. Eleven students at six universities took part in an…

Open educational resources, open content, open access, open research, open courseware--all of these open initiatives share, and benefit from, a vision of access and a collaborative framework that often result in improved outcomes. Many of these open initiatives have gained adoption within higher education and are now serving in mission-critical…

There are obvious differences between face-to-face instruction and learning and online instruction and learning. Although collaboration and community building do occur in the campus classroom, as does active learning, it is imperative in an online class. Students today will reluctantly attend classes that consist entirely of faculty lectures and…

Conceptualisations of internationalisation remain limited as long as the implications for pedagogy of an increasingly international teaching staff remain unexamined. Non-UK staff securing posts that involve teaching at British universities face substantial practical, cultural and linguistic challenges that impact on and, in some cases, inhibit,…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a case study of a newcomer to the practice of policing to explore conceptualisations of learning through practice. It aims to position learning as the intersections of trajectories of being and becoming within a community of practice. The paper seeks to argue that learners need to be understood with…

This article describes a course redesign project at the University of North Texas that is in the fifth year of a planned nine-year effort. The goals of the Next Generation Course Redesign (NGen) Project include practicing "never-ending course redesign," affecting teaching and learning at all levels of the institution and beyond, and…

This article looks at how professional learning communities (PLCs) have become an operational approach for professional development with potential to de-isolate the teaching experience in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The authors offer a short synopsis of the intellectual origins of PLCs, provide multiple…

We live today in a "knowledge society", but "knowledge transfer" is no longer the dominant extension education paradigm. The principle of "learning to learn" and the concepts of self-directed, collaborative and action learning are more crucial today then ever. The key principles are to stimulate knowledge discovery…

Primary source materials are increasingly being thought of as curricular resources and archivists are being asked to play the role of educator. This article, based on the session "Archivists as Educators: Integrating Primary Sources into the Curriculum" looks at the role of the primary source in undergraduate and secondary school curricula and…

Today's academic librarian is frequently called upon to function as a subject specialist, with or without advanced degrees in other disciplines. One method of monitoring trends within a given field is to study its literature; another is to attend conferences in the discipline. Discipline-specific conference attendance by academic librarians…

Cross-generational learning teams that bring together novice teachers with veteran teachers would address problems at both ends of the teacher pipeline--and benefit student learning at the same time. In this cross-generational learning team, each member brings different skills to support a child's learning--some bring deep science content…

In many schools, the school librarian is solely responsible to ensure the implementation of the school's reading program, technology plan, and information skills training. It may be a worthy goal to be a superhero, but school librarians should understand that they don't have to do all this alone. A school Literacy Committee can be a tremendous…

This paper explores the ways in which the concept of identity has been conceptualised and studied within science education. The Personality and Social Structure Perspective is used to examine the attention paid by researchers to three levels of identity analysis: "personality", "interaction" and "social structure". Tracing the development of…

The Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers (ALER) Yearbook, Volume 34, includes papers presented at the annual conference, which have gone through a double peer review process. It also includes the Presidential Address and the keynote addresses given at the conference. For ALER's 55th annual meeting, the Association of Literacy…

Today's educational environment requires teachers who understand teaching and learning, have strong content knowledge, and can make connections between life experiences and the curriculum. Teachers are expected to be continually learning to improve their practice. Professional learning is essential in this process. Research on professional…