In this study, an American public school principal's vision of promoting growth in her teachers and students was inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach. Unlike other educational approaches, this approach did not involve a product, i.e., "to become Reggio", and it did not involve a set of rules or mandates. Instead, the principal had her…

The Collaborative Cohort Model (CCM) of higher degrees supervision is gaining increasing popularity internationally and, in some contexts, replacing the conventional Apprentice Master Model (AMM). Among the motivations advanced for this shift is that the CCM improves completion rates and enhances the quality of research supervision. This…

This paper describes emergent learning and situates it within learning networks and systems and the broader learning ecology of Web 2.0. It describes the nature of emergence and emergent learning and the conditions that enable emergent, self-organised learning to occur and to flourish. Specifically, it explores whether emergent learning can be…

Ideas of "how we learn" in formal academic settings have changed markedly in recent decades. The primary position that universities once held on shaping what constitutes learning has come into question from a range of experience-led and situated learning models. Drawing on findings from a study conducted across three Australian universities, the…

Effective diversity education requires that the instructor be knowledgeable and comfortable with the theories and issues of identity. Given the persistence of curricular ethnocentrism and the highly charged nature of contemporary identity narratives, the preparation of faculty to teach diversity effectively across academic disciplines is no small…

The academic community in higher education is becoming increasingly fragmented, with arguably the greatest fault line between research and teaching. This paper argues that, through the reinvention of the undergraduate curriculum to focus on student engagement in research and research-type activities, a truly inclusive community of academic…

Learning Communities (LC) in higher education can serve as powerful connectors among individuals, particularly when integrating minority and White students. We conducted 24 in-depth interviews, using qualitative research methodology, with the 2004 cohort of LC students from a private, selective, Midwest university. Seniors at the time of…

Monte Vista Elementary School is one of 24 K-5 elementary schools in Las Cruces Public Schools, an urban district in southern New Mexico. The school's 450 students reflect the diversity of its Southwestern community: 75% Hispanic, 17% English language learners, and 68% free or reduced lunch, thus qualifying Monte Vista as a Title I school. Monte…

Through learning communities, schools can change to strengthen educator practice and improve student learning outcomes. So can districts. For 20 years, the authors have helped states, districts, and schools in the United States and Canada implement Whole-Faculty Study Groups, a design for learning communities. During the 2010-11 school year, they…

For this creative scholarly project, preservice teachers were invited to participate with two instructors by offering their sociopolitical autobiographies and reflective-reflexive reading responses for group discussion and analysis to explore the journal's theme "Immigration and Teacher Education: The Crisis and the Opportunity." The goal was to…

The occupation of teaching has many of the characteristics of a profession. It was once a calling that had the same degree of respect given to members of the clergy, but somewhere in the evolution of teaching in the United States, that sense of respect has been diminished, especially by policymakers who impose punitive actions when students fail…

Being a principal was the most demanding job the author ever had. He worked hard, mostly in isolation. Like most principals, he struggled to manage the position's political and bureaucratic necessities in order to concentrate on what he thought was the fundamental work of schools: teaching and learning. He struggled to continue to learn and grow…

Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, which reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, there has been an increased national focus on accountability in education (Jacobs, Gregory, Hoppy, & Yendol-Hoppey, 2009). This focus has developed into a movement that has become one of the central themes of the…

The purpose of this reputation-based, multiple-site case study was to explore professional learning communities' impact on teacher classroom practice. The goal of this research was to describe the administrator and teachers' perceptions with respect to professional learning communities as it related to teacher practice in their school. Educators…

In recent years, experts and organizations involved in mathematics education have emphasized the importance of collaboration between mathematicians and mathematics teacher educators as a means of improving the professional preparation of mathematics teachers. While several such collaborative endeavors have been documented in the extant literature,…