This dissertation is the result of research which examined the implementation of professional learning communities in a primary school. Professional learning communities or PLCs are groups of educators coming together collaboratively in a process of inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve. While there were…

How can curriculum integration of school science with the related disciplines of technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) enhance students' skills and their ability to link what they learn in school with the world outside the classroom? Featuring actual case studies of teachers' attempts to integrate their curriculum, their reasons for doing…

Both government and non-government agencies have decried how poorly today's students are prepared to thrive in the global marketplace. One area of concern, cross-cultural understandings and cross-cultural communication skills, is the basis for this study. A qualitative study using a phenomenological design was chosen in order to collect rich…

Clergy are significant providers of mental health services in the United States. The literature shows disparity between the need of clergy for mental health training and the type of brief training provided through seminar formats. It also indicates that the collaborative professional activities of clinicians and clergy may be enhanced when (1) the…

This year is designated as Thailand's "English Speaking Year" with the aim of improving the communicative competence of Thais for the upcoming integration of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2015. The consistent low-level proficiency of the Thais in the English language has led to numerous curriculum revisions and…

School change is always local and dependent on the kinds of resources that are available. In this paper we explore the notion that knowledge is an important resources for vernacular educational reform. In order to explore this contention, we use the lens of cross-curricular changes undertaken by English schools in receipt of funding from Creative…

This article examines the uptake of "suzhi"--roughly glossed as "quality"--in China's recent curriculum reform called "suzhi jiaoyu" (Education for Quality) in the rural ethnic context of Qiandongnan. It engages with three layers of analysis. First is a brief etymological overview of "suzhi" to map out its…

This article describes one MSW program's innovative and informed response to the pervasive problem of inadequate professional writing skills. We articulate the rationale, implementation, and assessment of our systemic response, which includes (a) requiring a professional writing course, (b) implementing curricular infusion of a standard writing…

The goal of school-university partnerships is most often the promotion of teacher growth through professional development (PD). Yet, despite the best of intentions, most PD is not conducted in an effective way. The purpose of this article is to share the perceptions of one group of elementary teachers regarding teacher growth and change as the…

"The Importance of Teaching: The Schools White Paper 2010," which grants schools increased autonomy in curriculum development and implementation, heralded a new era of curriculum reform in England. This article critically examines how this process took place in a Catholic secondary school that decided to use the RSA Opening Minds (OM)…

Drawing on the bilingual policies and biliteracy programmes of African nations, this paper discusses the context of literacy education in Nigeria and examines Nigerian early literacy teachers' attitudes to teaching literacy and literacy teaching practices as informed by the National Policy on Education, Primary English Language Curriculum and the…

In this article, I take a creative and autoethnographic approach to reflect upon processes of decolonisation in Indigenous Australian studies classrooms. Positioning myself as a non-Indigenous educator, I take the reader on a journey through my search for pedagogy which makes space for the colonial, difficult and messy politics of race, whiteness…

One of the challenges in in-service teacher education is how teachers can be given professional development (PD) that enables them to respond to national curriculum and policy change. In recent years primary teachers in New Zealand have been inundated with Ministry of Education-funded professional development programmes to help them implement a…

After China resumed the sovereignty of Hong Kong, the Curriculum Development Council encouraged schools to experiment with Putonghua as a medium of instruction (PMI) to teach the Chinese language. A review of the literature indicates that there have been problems in implementing the switch to the new medium of instruction (MOI). The aim of this…

Despite several years of successfully applying problem-based learning at Maastricht University, the Faculty of Medicine observed a slow erosion of problem-based practices and "PBL fatigue" among themselves and students. In response to this fatigue and new research into the development of the young adult brain, Active Self-Directed…