A considerable amount of current research on teaching and teacher education focuses on teacher collaboration. Teacher collaboration is presumed to be a powerful learning environment for teachers' professional development. However, empirical research about how teachers actually learn in collaborative settings is lacking. In this study, learning…

This article connects teachers' experiences of reflective school portfolio development to the idea of teachers' knowledge communities, the different groups and individuals with whom teachers negotiate meaning for their stories of experience, lived and told, and re-lived and re-told, over time. The reflective analysis makes the case that the…

In reviewing research from three successive research studies in one school district in Ontario, Canada, I trace the influence of leadership on the building of capacity in schools and the district. In so doing, it has become clear that the style of leadership has shifted to a more distributed approach, in which more teachers are becoming engaged in…

In this article we describe the evolving structure of the Inquiry Learning Forum (ILF), a sociotechnical interaction network (STIN) designed to support a Web-based community of in-service and preservice mathematics and science teachers sharing, improving, and creating inquiry-based pedagogical practices. Specifically, we apply activity theory as…

Many distinguished leaders and innovators in higher education who are calling for curricular reform in order to increase student engagement and retention cite learning communities as a powerful model for change. In this article, the term "learning communities" refers to "the purposeful restructuring of the curriculum by linking or clustering…

We are thesis examiners within the Australian academic system who formed a community of practice to try to resolve some of the issues we were facing. Stories of examiners reflecting on and examining their own practice are a notable silence in the higher degree research literature. In this study we have adopted a storytelling inquiry method that…

The relevance of action research to organisational change within contemporary health services in the United Kingdom is discussed in this article. Two examples of collaborative community-based studies are presented: one exploring ways to encourage community participation within a health and regeneration programme and the other considering the types…

A small group of training professionals within the John Lewis Partnership set up an action learning group about 2 years ago. The main aim was to explore the technique for our own learning and development. The timing and lifespan of the group reflected the generally strategic and long-term nature of our projects. One of these was to introduce…

Built on the foundation of four years of research and implementation of mobile learning projects (m-learning), this paper provides an overview of the potential of the integration of mobile Web 2.0 tools (based around smartphones) to facilitate social constructivist pedagogies and engage students in tertiary education. Pedagogical affordances of…

The authors report on a project in which a new experiential form of professional learning combined ethical thinking processes with a collaborative meeting technology known as the Zing team learning system (ZTLS). A new software program called "Working Wisely" was built by the completion of the project. The ZTLS in combination with…

In this article, the author examines the role the literacy coach at her school has played in supporting the kindergarten through second grade teachers. Using a theoretical framework for classroom communities (Pintaone-Hernandez, 2002), she reflects on how the literacy coach has helped teachers maintain a professional learning community in the wake…

This article examines contemporary research and debates about pedagogies of engagement that challenge the traditional assumptions and understandings of engagement. Three contesting epistemological constructions of student engagement are identified and examined through the contesting and resisting voices of teachers and students. The article's…

Three universities are fostering leaders committed to (1) defining models of scholarship, (2) building a network of leaders that can learn from each other, and (3) creating an outreach culture. This three-way university partnership has established an annual conference and an online learning community to support a network of leaders. How have the…

This theoretical paper utilizes cybernetic-­based approaches (Bopry, 1999; Wiener, 1954) and communications theory (Habermas, 1984, 1990; Krippendorff, 1994) to advance knowledge of constructivist learning. I argue that past educational research literature on constructivist learning is partly responsible for limiting how educational designers…

What kinds of interaction take place in a history department? What might be their value? Between 1999 and 2003, Simon Letman, then history teacher and Director of Studies at The Royal Hospital School in Ipswich, set out to discover how the rich variety of between-teacher- interactions, so much a feature of the department he had worked in for…