Professional learning community (PLC) is a current "buzz" term in business and educational contexts, seemingly referring to anything from decision making committees to regular meeting groups or collegial learning teams. This paper explores the concept of a PLC within three significantly innovative schools, based on an examination of the…

The purpose of the paper is to describe our peer mentorship experiences and explain how these experiences fostered transformational learning during our PhD graduate program in educational administration. As a literature backdrop, we discuss characteristics of traditional forms of mentorship and depict how our experiences of peer mentorship was…

This paper explores the complex processes involved in the self-construction of academic identity in a UK School of Education. Building on seminal literature in this field and drawing on the research of four academics, it begins by discussing teacher educators' varying perceptions of the need to re-configure their identity to meet the expectations…

This paper describes the Adolescent Community of Engagement (ACE) framework as a lens to guide research and design in adolescent online learning environments. Several online learning frameworks have emerged from higher education contexts, but these frameworks do not explicitly address the unique student and environmental characteristics of the…

The purpose of this paper is to examine a specific online pedagogical tool, "Digital Moments" that can be an effective strategy for building online communities in a knowledge building environment. While the paper will examine the specific techniques and teaching methodologies that enabled the authors to create authentic online learning…

The positioning of residential fieldwork early in students' higher education is an established way of attempting to build and engage them in a community of learning. In the study reported here, the benefits of such early residential fieldwork were investigated using Krausse and Coates's seven scales of engagement. These scales consider a number of…

This article describes and examines the design and assessment practices of a Summer of Service-Learning and Social Justice Program (SSSJP). The program was developed to deepen students' learning outcomes through strategically constructing multiple high impact practices: service-learning, an internship, a learning community, collaborative projects…

The ultimate key to successful integration and implementation of college- and career-ready standards and educator evaluation systems is the quality of the professional learning that educators engage in every day. Effective professional learning at the school level occurs among a team of teachers learning in a cycle of continuous improvement.…

This paper explores an overview of an evolving framework to enable creative pedagogies as applied to three different higher education contexts. Based upon our experiences, we propose a critical framework for supporting and implementing mobile social media for pedagogical change within higher education. Our framework maps the SAMR educational…

This paper reports on the experiences of newcomers at the 36th Annual MERGA Conference. The paper applies Wenger's (1998) social learning theory to explore the kinds of feedback that might assist newcomers. Questionnaire responses to describe the experience of ten newcomers and interview responses from five of the ten are reported. The…

First 3 is a support program for beginning teachers, who are in their first three years in the teaching career, and undergraduate students. First 3 starts with a Summer Institute in August and offers seminars and workshops through the year. The program offers an opportunity for teachers to be part of a learning community, share their experiences,…

Quality online professional learning is sometimes tough to recognize, yet most district leaders find themselves tasked with making decisions about which potentially costly and resource-intensive learning options are worth investing in. The primary purpose of this quality checklist is to help busy district leaders, including central office staff,…

This study tested the role of enabling school structures, collegial trust and academic emphasis in the development of professional learning communities (PLCs) in a low-income school district. The empirical study was based upon the perceptions of teachers and principals as provided by survey responses (N = 67 schools). While enabling school…

Background: The articulation of specific principles of teacher education practice allows teacher educators to make explicit the beliefs, values, and actions that shape their practice. Engaging in processes to articulate the principles that guide practice is beneficial not only for teacher educators and their colleagues but also for students. There…

This paper offers a medical-education perspective that I will hope complement other disciplinary perspectives in examining the value of reflection for learning in tertiary education. The paper outlines some of the theoretical strands of reflective practice facilitated in a unique course subject for professionalism and patient safety, within the…