This article discusses the growth and current state of learning communities (LCs) in higher education. It reviews literature on the impact of LCs, highlighting a sample of single-institution studies and describing results from multi-institutional studies. LCs have been a growing movement aimed at educational reform for decades, and evidence…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the knowledge strategies applied in aided secondary schools in Hong Kong and to explore the predictive relationship between knowledge strategies and school learning capacity. Design/methodology/approach: A cross-sectional quantitative survey was designed to collect data from 427 teachers at 15…

In today's policy and political climate, where teacher quality is widely assumed to be the single most important influence on students' learning, viewpoints about where, when, and how people learn to teach are mixed. However, most teachers and teacher educators continue to believe that teachers learn how to teach over time. This article looks…

This study examined the sense of community in an online course for special education teachers enrolled in a master's program. The sense of community in an online environment may contribute to students' success and satisfaction (Knapczyk, Chapman, Rodes, & Chung, 2001). This article provides an example of a process for online community development…

Different interpretations of scientific inquiry exist between the two different communities of scientists and science teachers. Thus, in order to achieve a successful partnership between science teachers and scientists in establishing effective communities of practice, the framework for instructional practice in teacher professional development…

The digitalisation of educational communities has increased rapidly in the last decade. Modern technologies transform the way educational leaders such as teachers, tutors, deans and supervisors view and manage their educational communities. More often, educational leaders offer a variety of gateways, guiding the e-learners in their search for…

Despite increasing investment in building, supporting, and managing communities of practice that meet the strategic business needs of the organization, the literature indicates that little is known about strategic communities of practice in organizational work settings. The purpose of this study was to investigate determinants and outcomes of…

The authors focused on 1 middle-grades mathematics teacher's identity and her efforts to implement standards-based instructional practices. As professionals, teachers participate in multiple professional communities and must negotiate and manage conflicting agendas. The authors analyze how the contexts of these communities influence the teacher's…

The essentialist view that new technological innovations (especially Social Media) disrupt higher education delivery ride on educators' risk averse attitudes toward full scale adoption of unproven technologies. However, this unsubstantiated logic forecloses possibilities for embracing the constructive dimensions of disruptions, and grasping the…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to focus on pedagogy as a crucial element in postgraduate research undertakings, implying active involvement of both student and supervisor in process of teaching and learning. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on Australian higher degree research supervision practice to illustrate their argument, the…

Public school and faith-based private school educators often primarily concern themselves with the health of their own sector. We contend, however, that the United States would benefit if American educators viewed the schooling system more holistically, in the process expressing a greater willingness to learn from those practicing in the other…

The challenge of preparing novice primary teachers for teaching in an educational environment, where science education has low status and many teachers have limited science content knowledge and lack the confidence to teach science, is great. This paper reports on an innovation involving a sustained simulation in an undergraduate science education…

Attending professional development programmes can support teachers in applying new strategies for teaching mathematics and statistics. This study investigated (a) the extent to which the participants in a professional development programme subsequently used the techniques they had learned when teaching mathematics and statistics and (b) the…

In 1969, a concern with the deep inequity of students' experiences and opportunities in traditional school systems first drove social studies teacher Rick DuFour to begin advocating for the kind of reforms that would jell into his transformative model, Professional Learning Communities (PLC) at Work, some 16 years later. The core belief of the PLC…

It is becoming increasingly important for teachers to collaborate. Teacher community is found to be a fruitful notion when thinking about improving collaboration. Teachers can be prepared for working in such communities during teacher education. We examined how the practice of collaboration within different types of groups in teacher education can…