This article takes issue with the notion that professional learning communities need to be more focused on teacher expertise through the use of online videos of lessons taught by expert teachers that are aligned with the Common Core State Standards. The authors argue that the use of externally developed, research-based, and standards-aligned…

Engineering Students Understanding Mathematics (ESUM) is a developmental research project at a UK university. The motivating aim is that engineering students should develop a more conceptual understanding of mathematics through their participation in an innovation in teaching. A small research team has both studied and contributed to innovation,…

This article analyzes the work of a long-term network of teachers, the Philadelphia Teachers Learning Cooperative, with a focus on their descriptive practices. Drawing on three years of ethnographic documentation of weekly meetings and a historical archive of meetings over 30 years, I characterize the teachers' knowledge about teaching and…

This report describes the eLearning Fellowship Program at the University of Jos (UNIJOS), first introduced in October 2008 through a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and recently adopted by the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa (PHEA) Educational Technology Initiative (ETI). The fellowship is a one-year program aimed at…

The article analyzes professional development in music education considering the ways in which policy change depends on conditions where renewed practice can become self supporting. The authors situate professional development amid the current politico-educational climate while offering an interpretive framework based on key issues and actions…

This study was conducted to better understand Wikibookian apprenticeship and identity as well as the environment or community they operate in. Our initial study explored the basic demographics, purpose and goals, ownership, collaborative work experiences, successes and failures, and advantages and disadvantages of wikibooks. Those initial results…

In this case study, two high school teachers, a university researcher, and 10 high school students (ages 16-19 years) were part of an action research group that addressed an issue--smoking on school grounds--identified by a high school population as being problematic. The research was guided by the following research questions: "Within a…

The goal of this study is to examine how to facilitate cross-cultural groups in problem-based learning (PBL) using online digital tools and videos. The PBL consisted of two video-based cases used to trigger student-learning issues about giving bad news to HIV-positive patients. Mixed groups of medical students from Canada and Hong Kong worked with…

Retention and graduation rates for engineering disciplines are significantly lower than desired, and research literature offers many possible causes. Engineering learning communities provide the opportunity to study relationships among specific causes and to develop and evaluate activities designed to lessen their impact. This paper details an…

The Transformative Change Initiative (TCI) is dedicated to assisting community colleges to scale up innovation in the form of guided pathways, programs of study, and evidence-based strategies to improve student outcomes and program, organization, and system performance. The impetus for TCI is the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and…

Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) released the first comprehensive study of assessment perceptions in 2012 that surveyed parents, teachers, and district administrators. In the intervening years, the landscape has shifted dramatically; indeed, it continues to shift every day. With new standards, accountability assessments, and ways of…

Debates on improving performance in science and engineering at higher education institutions have stressed the need for institutions to adopt pedagogic practices appropriate for the setting. In this paper we contribute to this debate by presenting the results of empirical research conducted in a first-year foundation mathematics course for Civil…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine if Professional Learning Communities in elementary schools that have strong evidence of the five dimensions of a Professional Learning Community have a higher degree of teamness than those schools that do not have strong evidence. Methodology: Using a descriptive and ex post facto study, the…

This book raises provocative questions about the efficacy, viability, and sustainability of professional learning communities given the current political and structural realities of public schools. The culmination of six years of research in five states, it explores real-world efforts to establish learning communities as a strategy for…

In a time of educational reform Professional Learning Communities is one initiative research suggests improves student achievement. The transition from a traditional middle school where content teachers work in isolation to an environment where teachers work in collaboration, necessitates a cultural shift. A qualitative case study was conducted to…