This paper presents a narrative case study of an innovative Froebelian approach to professional development, implemented in a large Nursery School and Family Centre in southern England undertaken as part of an extended programme of research and development funded by the Froebel Trust from 2021-2024 which was trans-national, including two early…

Distance or online learning is more than simply uploading and delivering learning resources to learners but in fact, it is a process that provides learners with autonomy, responsibility, flexibility and choice. This can be a challenge for many academic teachers. In 2020, as universities globally shifted to online learning, in response to the…

Team or co-supervision of doctoral students has been adopted by many universities in different parts of the world. This study focuses on a key aspect of this supervision model that is both a perceived advantage and a challenge, namely the need for supervisors to work collaboratively with colleagues for the benefit of students. It argues that…

Tutors have an important teaching role in higher education (HE), but rarely receive professional development beyond one-off generic workshops or seminars. Any feedback on their teaching is typically in the form of an evaluation, rather than focussed on enhancing tutors' teaching practice. To address this gap, we devised a professional development…

A starting point for realising connections between leadership and professional learning is to focus specifically on teachers and their conceptions of leadership. Typically, leadership is understood as a designated position with a defined role and responsibilities for individuals. An alternative conception is to view leadership as collective rather…

Supporting new academics when they begin a university career is important for them to adapt quickly and easily to the institutional goals and expectations. For those arriving from overseas and a different culture, often with families, this support is even more crucial. In this article, 10 academics from a range of disciplines, in which nine were…

Five factors for Maori teacher success in Aotearoa/New Zealand are identified in the success narratives of alumnae of a pre-service teacher education programme: whanau support, collegial working environments, feeling valued, risk-taking, and pursuing ongoing learning opportunities. Strong links to key Maori values are evident within these factors.…

This paper examines a professional development and learning intervention that sought to improve teachers' understandings of, and capacities to teach, "critical evaluation" in senior school physical education (SSPE). Physical education (PE) teachers and researchers formed a professional learning community (PLC) to deliver critical…

Using a hierarchical needs assessment model developed by Hunt we identified the essential competencies of communication management practitioners for the purpose of curriculum development and selection. We found that the underlying values of the profession were embodied in two superordinate goals. Six major competencies were identified, which were…

Teachers constantly question their own practice. Often, their questions remain unexplored. Collegial observation provides one way to see teaching differently and understand the tensions involved in incorporating new theoretical understandings into practice. Gebhard (1999) argues that conversations preceding and following such observations are…

Last February, in search of expanded thinking, the author led a group of 20 early childhood professionals on a study tour to Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ). The group included two Canadians and two Aussies, with everyone else from the United States. While they knew they had much to learn from the overall system of early childhood education in NZ, the…

We outline the project management tactics that we developed in praxis in order to manage elearning projects and show how our tactics were enhanced through implementing project management techniques from a formal project management methodology. Two key factors have contributed to our project management success. The first is maintaining a clear…

Educational psychologists in most parts of the world report that they take ecological approaches to their work. But what does working ecologically mean? How do we recognise ecological practice? This article discusses some salient aspects of the practice of psychologists who say they work ecologically. The first section of the paper presents a…

New Zealand universities have undergone significant structural change accompanied by declining public funding and increasing demands for accountability in recent years. In 2000, one of the country's largest universities redirected resources and funding in a "repositioning" exercise that resulted in redundancies and other consequences…

How does one become an effective teacher? What can be done to stem high attrition rates among beginning teachers? While many teachers are left to "sink or swim" in their first year--learning by trial and error, there remain a number of outstanding examples of collaboration and collegiality in teacher induction programs. Analysis of the…