Faculty and staff are curious about the potential of applications for mobile devices and how they can be used to enhance learning, teaching, and productivity. However, the number of applications seems overwhelming and faculty and staff have limited time and money to consider possibilities. This poster outlines the results of a learning community…

Attrition of special education teachers is a national problem resulting in lost monetary resources, school climate discontinuity, and lower student achievement. Within a small, rural district in southern Indiana, special education teacher attrition has risen since 2008 and continues to rise. District administrators want to retain teachers to…

Focused conversation is an approach used to lead group inquiry into topics of concern or interest. Four levels of questions guide participants through objective, reflective, interpretive and decisional levels of conversation. Over the past several years focused conversation was adopted in Australia to facilitate National Quality Framework related…

This conceptual article seeks to develop insights for teaching reflexivity in undergraduate management classes through developing processes of critical reflection. Theoretical inferences to support this aim are developed and organized in relation to four principles. They are as follows: first, preparing and making space for reflection in the…

An examination of recent gender scholarship demonstrates how a gendered lens has contributed to the debates on society, the state and education. Using local and international examples mostly from about 1880 to 1930, this paper will investigate how gendered perceptions coloured the provision of education, what we mean by "the state" and…

This study sought to determine if, how, and the extent to which, the implementation of lesson study with preservice teachers facilitates reflection in its participants. The lesson study reports of 20 preservice teachers were analyzed qualitatively along three dimensions to determine what lesson study reports revealed about their reflections. More…

This paper explores a multidimensional mentorship model implemented between lecturers from the foundation phase at the Wits School of Education and four master's students from the University of Limpopo, as part of the Departments of Education's research initiative to strengthen foundation phase teacher education. Using three critical incidents, we…

In the early to late 1990s, school systems throughout the United States were undergoing a rash of educational reforms as a result of public demands for holding schools accountable for student learning. Schools were searching for the reform or innovation that would help them improve student achievement. All over the country, "professional…

In response to the need for change in teaching practices, educators have bolstered efforts to provide professional development for teachers. However, research suggests that traditional models of professional development for educators are largely ineffective. Decades of research has also demonstrated that in order to bring about teacher change,…

The extent to which principals in suburban elementary and secondary schools lead schools to be ready to transform into professional learning committees was investigated. Data were collected through the use of the Professional Learning Communities Assessment-Revised (PLCA-R) questionnaire administered to principals, assistant principals and lead…

Fortunately, teaching practices help shape the learning experiences and increase motivation and achievement for students. In addition, it has been revealed that when teachers collaborate well together they also tend to work better with students. This new informative publication clearly identifies and arranges profiles in relation to two connected…

This observational study explored the connections between collaborative teacher learning communities as related to teacher efficacy in the largest high schools in Ohio. These communities are typically called Small Learning Communities and Professional Learning Communities. Small Learning Communities are usually created with academic content area…

This study focuses on teaching experience and practice in post-secondary education--an important and understudied topic. I conducted an in-depth qualitative study of instructor experience in the Metro Academies' Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs), which currently operate at City College of San Francisco (CCSF) and San Francisco State University…

In this article we study how members of an interdisciplinary research team use an online forum for communicating about their research project. We use the concepts of "community of practice" and "connectivity" to consider the online interaction within a wider question of how people from different academic traditions…

This volume focuses on learning communities at the beginning and at the culmination of work in the major of psychology and reflects a commitment to good practice both within and outside the classroom. Its comprehensive approach attests to the power of learning communities within the discipline and is a fine example of their evolution. In this…