Three early career primary school teachers shared their perceptions of changes in their teaching of mathematics 8-18 months after their participation in an action research project. Comparing data collected throughout the lifetime of the project with analyses of participants' reflections written in response to three open-ended questions posed…

Nearly 3,000 career and technical educators from across the country converged upon St. Louis, Missouri, for the premier professional development event in career and technical education (CTE). The Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) held its Annual Convention and Career Tech Expo November 17-19, bringing together teachers,…

At the heart of teaching others is the moral imperative to care. Social justice education begins with adopting a disposition to perceive and then act against indecencies and injustices. Teachers are public figures entrusted by a democratic society to act in the best interests of the children in their care. Music educators must embrace this social…

All across California, educators are finding that creating strong and effective Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) at every grade level or in every subject area is not easy. It may be tempting to conclude that PLCs are one more idea that did not work. But there is solid research to support the core concepts of PLCs: (1) a focus on learning;…

Learning to become a teacher is a developmental process, part of which is learning to become a reflective practitioner. The authors have implemented a structured approach to developing the habits of critical reflection, the purpose of which is to guide their university students (who are pre-service teachers) to progress through the stages of…

Teaching philosophy (TP) statements are increasingly required within academia for hiring and promotion purposes. For health educators, a TP can be a valuable resource for academicians as well as practitioners, linking educational theory with teaching techniques, philosophy with practice. The process of formulating a TP statement provides the…

Feedback on performance is a feature of professional training. Much feedback is delivered in post-observation conferences where a "trainer" will discuss the "trainee's" performance with him/her. What transpires in these conferences, however, is "hidden from view" (Heritage and Sefi 1992: 362) and the norms of interaction are largely unexamined in…

Professionals increasingly must collaborate very closely, such as through inter-professional work arrangements. This involves learning both "in" and "for" collaboration. Some educational researchers have turned to complexity science to better understand these learning dynamics. This discussion asks, How useful is complexity science for examining…

Professional practice is embedded in complex dynamics of knowledge that are present within, but reach beyond, local work. Knowledge is generated from a manifold of sources, and further developed and circulated in professional communities as practitioners are confronted with non-routine problems. Drawing on the work of Karin Knorr Cetina and her…

The Federal Government in Australia has recently established Centres for Excellence in Teacher Education. These Centres represent a power shift towards schools in teacher education and away from centralised bureaucracies and university faculties of education. Given this shift, it is interesting to examine other historical and current school-based…

This final chapter provides observations about institutional research in community colleges derived from the preceding chapters and the issue editors' own experiences. Taken as a whole, the chapters in this issue, as well as the editors' experiences, suggest several observations about institutional research in community colleges. These include the…

Field instructors have often not felt empowered to address their concerns about a critical skill in their students' professional development: their students' writing. In this article, we explain ways that field education departments and social work faculty can support field instructors to improve their students' writing. In addition, we provide…

A clear vision is the essential foundation for making decisions about precious resources for implementing professional learning: (1) people; (2) time; and (3) money. The Auburn School District in Washington state learned firsthand how a clear vision drives resource allocation to support strategic actions and how effective partnerships can be the…

With growing attention to the internationalization of counseling psychology in the past decade, discussion on effective training of international students is much-needed. In order to provide effective mentorship to international students, the mentor needs to be aware of specific challenges faced by international students and cultural differences…

A new graduate teaching assistant (TA) training program has been developed to support curricular reforms in our large enrollment general chemistry courses. The focus of this training has been to support the TAs in the implementation of student-centered recitation sessions and support the professional development of the TAs. The training includes…