The article is a comparative analysis of the policy and practice of professional learning communities (PLCs) in primary schools in England and Finland. The concept of PLC has become a globally fashionable one and has been explicitly advocated in policy documents in both countries. Drawing from a database of qualitative semi-structured interviews…

This paper discusses the benefits of a community of practice (CoP) approach to graduate education in engineering and examines guidelines for implementation. Community of practice theory and applications to practice are presented. Journal clubs, groups of faculty and students who meet regularly to discuss literature, are identified as one specific…

Improving the quality of Early Childhood Education has been a priority in Brazil, but it is still a challenging issue to be faced. The fact that an indefinite number of institutions exist on the borders of the educational system, the lack of systematic supervision, and incomplete official statistics are only a few of the challenges. The Millennium…

This paper grows from research which focuses on the learning characteristics of PhD students, incorporating communities of practice both during their studies and beyond completion of their PhD, and drawing on theories of adult learning and lifelong learning. It shows how professional discourse enhances academic discourse through student engagement…

This article is a collaborative self-study of our development as beginning teacher educators over the course of an academic year. A focus of our self-study was our shared interest in the role of theory and of practice in teacher education programs. Theodore taught a philosophy of education course and Shawn taught a practicum supervision course.…

University students often serve as tutors who supplement the lecture-based teaching of permanent academic staff. However, potential issues arise when student tutors are employed with similar expectations of expertise and experience as the industry professionals and permanent staff they teach alongside. Arguably, successful and sustainable…

The growth of available online learning programmes has created a wide range of new ways for global organizations to train their staff effectively. Previously, global training entailed substantial costs for organizations--costs that had to be endured if the knowledge and skills of the workforce were to be updated. In this context, virtual…

In this article, the authors argue that district and school leaders continue to struggle with the apparent dichotomy between "traditional" and "reform-oriented professional development," especially with increased presence of professional learning communities in schools and their use in replacing other forms of professional development. Traditional…

Elementary school classrooms and preservice teachers rarely perceive math as a form of communication or as a foundation for community. Instead, it often takes the shape of numbered problems with very specific answers compiled into textbooks and worksheets. In an effort to make connections between literacy and mathematics for preservice teachers,…

There is a need to develop a broader view of knowledge to deal with the way in which new digital trends influence the underlying conditions for schools, teaching and subjects. This theoretical article will therefore examine whether a broader view of knowledge, digital literacy and assessment forms can generate new ways of adapted education within…

While participating in the Bilingual Teacher Research Forum (a teacher inquiry group), I decided to do research in my classroom to investigate the ways in which emergent bilinguals (EBs) expanded their appreciation and understanding of writing in English as a second language. The purpose of this study was to examine and describe first-grade EBs'…

In the fall of 2009, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded a three-year project proposed by the International Baccalaureate (IB) to demonstrate the feasibility of increasing the participation of minority students and students in poverty in its Middle Years Programme (MYP) and Diploma Programme (DP) in selected school districts in the…

Health science students like students in many disciplines exhibit difficulty with transferring content from one course to another. For example, the problem explored in this study occurred when overlapping concepts were presented in introductory biology and chemistry courses, but students could not transfer the concepts to the other disciplinary…

The Basic Skills Report for California Community Colleges (2007) stresses the importance of comprehensive training and development opportunities for all faculty (tenured and part-time), administrators and staff members who work with underprepared students. With such a large number of academically underprepared students entering the community…

No Child Left Behind mandates have given teachers new responsibilities in data analysis and the implementation of strategies that meet individual student needs. Providing tools and methods for data collection, managing it, and then analyzing it is now a basic need for teachers. By aligning assessments for the specific purpose of addressing…