This study explored the influence of a 12-hour professional learning community for family child care providers in an urban Midwest city on the participants' beliefs and practices. A secondary purpose was to explore the potential of the professional learning community as a format for professional development of family child care providers. Data for…

Bourdieu's concept of habitus has increasingly been used in research in the sports coaching field and offers a useful concept for understanding how experience comes to shape coaching practice. In this article, we begin by outlining the use of habitus in the sports coaching literature and provide a brief description of it and its relationship…

A review of literature related to the existence of an invisible college community among coauthors of articles in top-rated social work journals indicated that an invisible college could promote quality scholarship but that coauthoring might be inadequately studied or valued in social work education. Social network analysis revealed a skeletal…

In this article, the role of theory in higher education research is problematised using a communities of practice framework. Drawing on a case study derived from the author's own published work and doctoral study, the article concludes that the differential uses of theory within communities of research practice can be fruitfully explored, in part,…

Civic engagement, or the practice of democratic deliberation in adult education and learning, asks that adults use their experiences to cooperatively build solutions to the difficult social, economic, and political problems that affect their lives and communities now and into the future. The articles presented in this issue look at the…

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;…

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…

This article examines teachers' perceptions of, and experiences with, professional development opportunities involving a school-based project on peer observation of teaching. The study aims to reveal the ways in which seven teachers in one primary school in Cyprus see themselves as agents improving their own and peers' teaching through informal…

The authors discuss 2 macro-level community practice courses, examining how each applies the concepts of situated learning to foster the development of communities of practice through use of a unique model for antioppressive practice. The theoretical underpinnings and a discussion of the implementation of each stage of the model is provided. The…

This article documents the experiences of a community of practice (CoP) of female academics with regard to the notion of publishing. The non-probability, purposive sample utilised in the study, comprised a group of female academics who were involved in a women in research programme at a University of Technology (UoT). The purpose of the article…

Interactive online help systems are considered to be a fruitful supplement to traditional IT helpdesks, which are often overloaded. They often comprise user-generated FAQ collections playing the role of technology-based conceptual artifacts. Two main questions arise: how the conceptual artifacts should be used, and which factors influence their…

This paper presents a case study of a private preschool in Thessaloniki, Greece. The school, located at the unique setting of an educational farm, has a curriculum focus on environmental education. An analysis of teacher interviews and lesson plans in the span of three years presents insights into the barriers teachers faced in implementing their…

One of the key factors that contribute to effective management of schools is the professional development of principals. The role of the principal has become more complex with the dynamic and constant reforms in the educational environment. The present study focuses on the professional development of principals in New Zealand and Singapore. The…

This paper identifies salient practices of faculty mentors of undergraduate research (UR) as indicated in the extensive literature of the past two decades on UR. The well-established benefits for students involved in UR are dependent, first and foremost, on high-quality mentoring. Mentorship is a defining feature of UR. As more and different types…

This article documents the process of collaboratively developing lesson hook e-resources for science teachers to establish a community of inquiry and to strengthen the pedagogy of science teaching. The authors aim to illustrate how the development and application of strategic hooks can bridge situational interest and personal interest so that…