Professionals make decisions, problem-solve through experience, skill and cognition, while providing a unique community service. For the government-employed professional teacher, professional associations, standards, identity and their employer contribute to professional development (PD). Meanwhile, continuous PD, or professional lifelong…

Claims about teachers' potential to influence change tend to overlook that educational outcomes arise from complex, situated practices of many actors including teachers. This article introduces a tool for Teachers' Reflection on their Agency for Change (TRAC) for empirical analysis of teaching as a collective activity designed to 'track' the…

The purpose of this paper is to describe the school-based contextual constraints perceived by beginning elementary teachers as they attempted to enact their visions of effective mathematics teaching and the components of a mathematics-specific, university-based induction program designed to support elementary teachers in their teaching of…

The Collaborative Teacher Inquiry Project was a professional development initiative that sought to improve the teaching and learning of Grade 9 Applied mathematics by encouraging teachers to work collaboratively. The project brought together Grade 9 Applied mathematics teachers from 11 schools across four neighboring public school boards in the…

Novice teachers need to develop their professional judgment. Teaching is performed in the face of imperfect, complex but above all continuously emergent situations. These matters have not received adequate attention in theories relating to professional judgment and professionality in teaching or in the contemporary discourse of education policy.…

This paper is a narrative of two dimensions of professional learning: a personal one following the development of the author's own understanding of professional learning and its impact on practice explored through her research into support staff in schools. It draws on three research projects which examined the role and work of teaching assistants…

Informed by an amalgam of notions drawn from constructivist, socio-cultural, metacognitive and self-regulation theory, the discourse created to describe assessment to enhance learning has gone through a number of iterations or discursive shifts. As a result, the current discourse is both ambitious and complex with the roles and responsibilities…

Explores the concept of professionalism in teaching and the facilitation of learning in higher education in the United Kingdom, discussing the role of the Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. The article suggests that professionalizing teaching cannot occur through restrictions on the right to practice, but instead will come…

Presents a framework for supporting new graduate teaching assistants based on a model of how higher education teachers develop and theories of how professionals learn. The framework accounts for wide variation in graduate teaching assistants' roles and responsibilities and increasing acceptance and importance of gaining accreditation. It is…

This editorial introduces the July 2004 issue of "Teacher Development". When Sue Brindley, the principal editor of "Teacher Development", invited the General Teaching Council for England to participate in guest-editing a special issue of the journal on the theme of teachers' engagement in and with research, the GTC was…

Describes successes and problems of the European Schoolnet Multimedia Project, highlighting one project, the Learning School, which researched teachers' needs and uses of information and communication technology in the classroom in Portugal, Belgium, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The article examines issues related to pedagogy, demands on…

This article is about using research from a practitioner perspective. It tells the stories of four teachers and a researcher, who were part of a collaborative project focused on connecting research and practice in relation to Education for Sustainable Development. The project started with a small advertisement placed in a practitioner newsletter,…

Improving professionalism and teachers' professional image is beginning to figure highly on the educational policy agenda of a number of countries facing teacher shortages. This article probes and questions the language of education and educators and reasons that so much focus has been placed on expectations of teachers and teacher development…

Examines some of the changes that are occurring in the nature of teaching, suggesting that institutions should respond strategically. The article outlines how staff can be educated, supported, and rewarded with respect to their teaching responsibilities, arguing that strategies employed should focus on reforming reward structures. The article…

Examines research on preparation and support of part-time faculty, analyzing four areas of support: institutional policies and practices, formal preparation programs, monitoring and evaluation systems, and formal and informal support measures in academic departments. Key processes and problems in each area are discussed, examining issues that must…