Increasingly school change processes are being facilitated through the formation and operation of groups of teachers working together for improved student outcomes. These groupings are variously referred to as networks, networked learning communities, communities of practice, professional learning communities, learning circles or clusters. The…

The findings from this qualitative case study reveal how a principal' demonstration of compassion and deep care towards his teachers was influential in the participants' renewed desire for a greater commitment to and improvement of their craft. Understanding how school leaders can nourish and sustain passion and commitment is an essential area of…

Introduction: Continuing education is one of the means by which professionals maintain and increase their level of competence. However, the relationship between continuing education and the professional's sense of personal competence and other practice-related variables remains unclear. This study examined practicing psychologists' continuing…

This paper examines the learning gained from facilitating four action-learning sets whose members were drawn from management teams of local authority, health, education and police, working in partnership. Facilitation posed a series of difficult choices which impacted on personal and organizational dynamics within and between the partnership…

When adult ESL (English as a Second Language) learners enter our classrooms with little or no first language literacy, their instructors teach them to read for the first time in an unfamiliar language. It is a tremendous task, and the context for teaching "adult emergent readers" is complex. This complexity is coupled with a growing, but still…

This article focuses on personal learning environments (PLEs). The idea with PLEs is to put students in a more central position in the learning process by allowing them to design their own learning environments and by emphasising the self-regulated nature of the learning. This study describes the structure, functions and challenges of PLEs made by…

The purpose of this article is to provide basic guidelines to successfully establish a support group for caregivers of persons with dementia. Support groups should provide its members with a community of support, as well as coping and management strategies to improve daily function of loved ones. This should improve the care provided, and the…

This paper puts forward a new design perspective for game-based learning. The general idea is to abandon the long sought-after dream of designing a closed learning system, where students in both primary and secondary school could learn--without the interference of teachers--whatever subject they wanted while sitting in front of a computer. This…

It is widely recognized today that a teacher's surrounding professional community inevitably affects the kind of teaching that students are offered. However, until recently, it has been difficult to quantify and systematically study the nature of professional relationships in schools and districts. The articles in this special issue provide a…

The doctoral thesis constitutes both a negotiation of the supervision relationship as well as mastery and skill in participating in a specific community of practice. Two models of supervision are discussed: the technical rationality model with its emphasis on technical aspects of supervision, and the negotiated order model with an emphasis on…

Teaching circles are an innovative mechanism to support faculty and improve student learning. This article describes the use of instructor teaching circles to support math-anxious students at a mid-sized urban university, including the purposes, formation, and sometimes surprising outcomes associated with using this method. Teaching circles for…

Communities of practice are becoming more widespread within higher education, yet little research has explored how these social learning networks can enhance faculty development. The focus of this paper is to describe the first-year experience of a community of practice initiative at McMaster University that was designed to engage groups of…

STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) teaching is more effective and student achievement increases when teachers join forces to develop strong professional learning communities in their schools. This finding is supported by a two-year National Science Foundation funded study, "STEM Teachers in Professional Learning Communities:…

Rural educators face many barriers when trying to participate in high quality professional development, including isolation, funding issues, distance, and lack of temporary replacements. Technological solutions can assist rural educators in overcoming these barriers. Participating in on-line professional learning communities can provide New…

A growing number of researchers claim that web-based communication tools, such as weblogs (blogs for short), have the potential to transform teaching and learning in schools across grade levels. Yet, much of this research lacks evidence of what instructors and students are actually doing with the technology, including the circumstances under which…