The popularity and pervasiveness of online communities have led researchers and practitioners alike to closely examine the utility of online communities for supporting and facilitating professional learning. As economic constraints leave fewer resources available for professional development, educators in particular are examining the potential of…

At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War the republican authorities started organising what came to be known as "children's colonies". These children's colonies became both home and school for all the children who were evacuated from Madrid. The purpose of this article is to study in depth the transformation of many of these children's…

Drawing on a presumption that a Community of Practice (COP) can add significant value to the situated learning development of adults in any context, this paper exposes and analyses the challenges faced in facilitating the development of a COP involving part-time work-based researchers. Using an empirical case example involving a collaborative…

The authors describe successful STEM teacher recruiting and training practices developed through the Talented Teachers in Training for Texas (T4) program. They discuss implementing three distinctive recruiting experiences--a STEM Master Teacher Job Shadow, a STEM Day, and a NASA Aerospace Teachers Program--along with a multiyear scholarship and…

Today's teachers have many personalized learning options available to them, and several are free. The author discusses how to use social media for professional learning, describes edcamps where much of the focus is on teaching best practices, technology usage, and connecting and collaborating with other education professionals, and the advantages…

Development of researchers through higher degree research studies is a high priority in most universities. Yet, research about supervision as pedagogy and models of supervision is only recently gained increasing attention. Charged with producing good researchers within very limited resources, academics are constantly looking for more efficient…

While the science classroom primarily remains a site for knowledge acquisition through teacher directed experiences, other sites exist outside of the classroom that allow for student generation of scientific knowledge. These sites provide opportunities for linguistic and social interactions to play a powerful role in situating students'…

Living-learning communities combine curricular, co-curricular, and residential components of college life. They are a relatively new variation on the residential education that has been part of the undergraduate experience at America's independent colleges and universities for centuries. Research suggests that living-learning communities have a…

Textual production is a human dialogical business--an aspect of humanness and mutual connectedness--that is too easily forgotten and yet it has important implications for teaching. Using dialogue can result in learning where receptiveness and openness to new possibilities are valued above such things as task completion and the fulfilling of…

In this paper, we consider the implications of a commitment to acknowledging the role of context within a research practice partnership. We outline the approach to doing so within a design-based research intervention with 42 schools across three Pacific Island countries to improve literacy learning and language development. In doing so, the paper…

This article presents the story of one elementary school teacher's shift in art praxis through her involvement in a research project aimed at facilitating participatory arts-based communities of practice. Qualitative methods and social constructivism informed Professional Learning Interventions (PLIs) involving: (1) a visual arts workshop, (2)…

This study examined the predictive relationship among international students' sense of community, perceived learning, and end-of-course grades in computer-mediated, U.S. graduate-level courses. The community of inquiry (CoI) framework served as the theoretical foundation for the study. Step-wise hierarchical multiple regression showed no…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of communities of practice in organizations and their most beneficial effects for both individual and collective development. Design/Methodology/Approach: Based on a literature review, from the first authoritative texts by Lave and Wenger until the most recent critiques, the paper has…

The national curriculum for chemistry includes topics that have not previously been taught at secondary level. In response to requests for teacher professional learning (PL) covering these topics, a course called "Divide and Analyse" was developed. Investigations into the PL needs of chemistry teachers were carried out in conjunction…

From a perspective of social practice, learning is a socially constituted practice that is imbued with socio-culturally significant meanings and shaped by the values and norms shared within a community of learners. This focus group study examines the role of e-learning technologies in mediating the social practice of learning among coursework…