There is a defined need to provide accessible and effective professional development for 4-H educators. Lesson study is a Community of Practice-based approach to educator professional development. Prior research has shown lesson study to be effective with 4-H staff, adult volunteers, and teen volunteers. This inquiry, a multisite case study, was…

Effective professional development for course instructors in higher education has long been a point of interest in terms of how not only ongoing training can benefit instructors but also how those benefits could possibly improve student experiences and learning outcomes. This qualitative case study specifically examines a population of teachers…

As U.S. school leaders anticipate the end of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds and contemplate possible budget shortfalls, they will have to make hard choices about how best to leverage limited resources to improve student outcomes. With the stakes high, lawmakers and experts urge school system leaders to rely on research and…

Realizing their coaching program was not having desired effects for teachers or for students' achievement, leaders in the Manor School District in Texas revamped the district's coaching program. They created two "communities" encompassing all coaches in the district (since district schools were each doing their own thing with regard to…

The role of principals, especially in rural schools, where educational outcomes fall below the national average, is significant in implementing changes in the school. The focus of this qualitative study was to explore factors that principals deem most crucial to establishing and maintaining Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). Moreover,…

Though scholars agree that professional development (PD) is a key mechanism for implementing education policies that call for teacher change, and that PD generally needs to be content-focused, active, collaborative, coherent, and sustained, the application of this framework has yielded mixed results. In this qualitative study, we employed…

As the Professional Learning Community (PLC) process becomes embedded within schools, the level of district support has a direct impact on whether schools have the ability to re-culture and sustain highly effective collaborative practices. The purpose of this article is to share a professional learning community conceptual framework from the US,…

Today's academic librarian is frequently called upon to function as a subject specialist, with or without advanced degrees in other disciplines. One method of monitoring trends within a given field is to study its literature; another is to attend conferences in the discipline. Discipline-specific conference attendance by academic librarians…

This is a preliminary analysis of The Academy for Teacher Excellence (ATE) induction support provided through the Teacher Academy Induction Learning Community (TAILC). In response to current US teacher attrition rates, ATE-TAILC's primary objective is to retain teachers in the classroom and provide support to ensure they are fully prepared to meet…

Recently developed Professional Development School standards underscore the importance of professional learning community, inquiry, shared decision-making and a focus on student learning. These standards closely mirror the goals of "Critical Friends Groups," a significant movement in education to improve student achievement through…