In discussions of work-based learning in anglophone countries, a relatively new question concerns different learning opportunities for differentially positioned novices in the workplace. Basil Bernstein relates learners' positioning with respect to knowledge and within a community of knowers to variations in a discourse underlying and regulating…

Health science courses aim to prepare students for the demands of their chosen profession by learning ways appropriate to that profession and the contexts they will work and live in. Expectations of what students should learn become re-contextualised and translated into entry-level curriculum, with students operating as a connection between what…

The purpose of this study was to identify knowledge construction patterns in a local learning community. Observation, documents, and semistructured interviews were employed to collect data. Twenty learners were interviewed. Data were analyzed inductively using the constant comparative method. Five major patterns--radiation, circulation,…

Catholic Studies is a religious education course used in senior high schools in New South Wales, Australia. The course is not counted for university entrance but meets the requirement for students to undertake religious study whilst in catholic schools. This paper examines the perceptions of teachers on why students take the course and what parts…

Principal evaluation systems without explicit and aligned professional learning simply re-create a system of compliance and fail to improve leadership capacity. Given the complexity of the role of today's principals, they must learn a new set of skills and knowledge to create innovative learning environments. To use principal evaluation as a tool…

This article describes a project initiated to address the challenges of providing high-quality professional development to teachers in rural schools. Spread over the vast northwest corner of Colorado, where it takes over two hours to drive from one end of the region to the other, the Northwest Colorado Board of Cooperative Educational Services (NW…

The present study determined the perceptions of pre-service teachers on utilizing productive lesson study as a framework in teaching high school chemistry. Participants of the study were thirty (30) junior pre-service chemistry teachers from a state-funded teacher education institution in Manila, Philippines. Participants were exposed to a…

Research has suggested that independent study students in online courses may benefit from engaging with a proximate community of engagement (PCE) and that students perceive that such engagement will help them succeed. Independent Study students were surveyed at the completion of their course to assess the level at which they actually interacted…

The academic profession has been long recognized as a pivotal source of belief and identity alongside the discipline and the institution of belonging. However, the ways in which academics as a professional group organize themselves towards common objectives that possibly transcend systems, institutions and disciplines, has not been explored so…

The experiences of female students in an engineering living-learning program (LLP) are described in this study using a constructivist theoretical perspective. The study aims to fill gaps in the literature using qualitative methods. Data from 13 semi-structured individual interviews serve as the primary data source. After conducting a metaphorical…

Interest in interdisciplinary programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related fields at the graduate-degree level is widespread across American higher education. Using longitudinal qualitative interviews, this article considers the early career experiences of scholars who hold an interdisciplinary PhD in neuroscience.…

The author reflects on his 44-year career as a science instructor, during which he gradually implements new active learning strategies in the classroom and shifts to integrating science and literature in the teaching of learning communities. The author describes three learning communities to show how the disciplines of science and literature can…

Black males, as one non-dominant population, remain underrepresented and less successful in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Researchers focused on non-dominant populations are advised against generalizations and to examine cultural intersections (i.e. race, ethnicity, gender, and more) and also to explore cases of…

Important elements of professional socialisation include a sense of identity or belonging within a professional community and a set of established or expected practices. In the context of pre-service teacher education, opportunities to reflect upon past and current personae and to imagine future possible identities may assist pre-service teachers…

This instrumental case study examines how secondary biology teachers in a professional learning community (PLC) negotiated the meaning of the "Next Generation Science Standards" ("NGSS") in a year-long process of redesigning their curriculum. The PLC consisted of six biology teachers, five females and one male, who co-planned…