The timely incorporation of health research into the routine practice of individual health practitioners and interprofessional teams is a widely recognized and ongoing challenge. Health professional engagement and learning is an important cog in the wheel of knowledge translation; passive dissemination of evidence through journals and clinical…

Every August for the past six years, teachers at Walled Lake Consolidated Schools in Michigan learn how to use the latest educational technology tools from their colleagues during the district's one-day technology conference called Spice It Up! The teachers are both the presenters and the attendees, and they have a shared goal of moving the…

Collaborative inquiry groups, such as professional learning communities and lesson study groups, are proliferating in schools across the United States. In whatever form, the potential for impacting student learning through this collaborative work is expanded or limited by the nature of teachers' conversations. Polite, congenial conversations…

Staff of subject centres have been largely invisible from discussions about the nature of Educational Development in the UK, which has largely focused on the institutional context. This article seeks to enhance the visibility and identity of subject centre academic coordinators who provide discipline-based teaching and learning support across the…

Nonfiction writing, as defined by the author, is the mix of art, craft, and information, put together by writers who let readers know they are interested in a topic, and who speculate about what that interest or topic might mean. In this article, the author introduces ten imagined colleagues who provide essential support for the teaching of…

As virtual worlds become more widely utilized in education to deliver instruction, the need to measure learning in this environment will continue to grow. Building upon McKerlich and Anderson's (2008) exploratory study, the researchers of this study utilized the Community of Inquiry's (CoI) Multi-User Virtual Environment Education Evaluation Tool…

Using the case of a secondary English department in Ontario, Canada, this article examines the constraints that academic departments face in transforming themselves from communities of practice into learning communities. This distinction between a community of practice and a learning community has taken on heightened importance as increasing…

Online music communities offer a new context and culture for musical participation globally. This article, employing a socio-cultural theoretical lens, examines how the Online Academy of Irish Music (OAIM) functions as a teaching and learning online community for Irish traditional music. Findings from qualitative case study research present…

Universities across the country are steadily increasing their use of online courses. Society's demand for lifelong learning will encourage the advancement of distance learning. Research tells us that today the average person changes careers every ten years. In addition, the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that about 10% of workers change jobs…

The social and collaborative aspects of work settings are becoming increasingly important. For example, recent research has placed emphasis on the social nature of learning. In addition, many authors have suggested that 21st century skills that will be required in future work and professional environments will involve collaborative skills, making…

In this case study, we researched one cohort from the Center for Animation, a higher education teaching environment that has successfully fostered group creativity and learning outcomes through problem-based learning. Through live and videotaped observations of the interactions of this community over 18 months, in addition to focused interviews…

Teacher education based on "reflective practice" consists of observing, analysing and reflecting on teacher performance in order to improve professional practice. This article presents the results of an evaluation of a programme on mathematics teaching carried out using reflective practice. It was targeted at 284 teachers in various…

This study explored whether or not, and how, an on-site and research-teacher community of practice model for professional development addressed the challenges to classroom practices in a Head Start program. Data sources included interviews with teachers, videos of planning and teaching sessions, and the researchers' fieldwork log and reflective…

The purposes of this study were twofold: to examine the effects of a community of practice (CoP) on (1) physical educators' and their students' health-related fitness content knowledge and (2) the physical educators' health-related fitness pedagogical content knowledge construction process. Twelve experienced physical education teachers (six in…

In the last decade, the concept of Open Educational Resources (OER) has gained an undeniable momentum. However, it is an easy trap to confuse download and registration rates with actual learning and interest in the adoption and reuse of OER. If we focus solely on access, we cannot differentiate between processes of mere information foraging and…