Representations have been widely applied to teaching and learning in Western classrooms and recently in several Asian countries. More and more Asian schools are calling for the application of this approach in teaching science. However, little has been known about how the construction of representations could enable teachers to make changes in…

Recent reviews of vocational qualifications in England have noted problems with their restricted nature. However, the underlying issue of how to conceptualise professional agency in curriculum design has not been properly addressed, either by the Richard or the Whitehead reviews. Drawing on comparative work in England and Europe it is argued that…

The demographics in America's K-12 classrooms will continue to shift throughout the 21st century as students become more diverse. However, educators remain predominantly White, presenting issues of cultural disequilibrium. Cultural disequilibrium may result in frustration and a breakdown in the classroom, leading to a lack of achievement amongst…

This article contributes to discourse on signature pedagogy by reconceptualizing how our pedagogies are understood and defined for social work education. We critique the view that field education is social work's signature pedagogy and consider what pedagogies are distinct about the teaching and learning of social work. Using Shulman's…

Online professional development (OPD) is proliferating in an effort to eliminate barriers to high-quality in-service teacher training. Using the Internet as a vehicle for continuing professional development, however, introduces new concerns largely absent in its face-to-face counterpart. For example, evidence from the USA's e-Learning for…

This article reports on an inter-institutional project to design, develop, pilot, and evaluate a state-wide online training course for higher education adjunct faculty who are preparing to teach their first online course. We begin with a brief literature review to contextualize the stated problem the project sought to address: the need for…

Although there is a need for continued pedagogical advancement in science undergraduate education, what is needed more urgently is more widespread adaptation of pedagogical practices that research has already shown to promote learning. Those practices include interactive engagement pedagogies such as active learning and inquiry-based learning. The…

Schools are increasingly integrating multidisciplinary education into their programmes. The Minister of Education, Culture and Science has introduced a new, integrated science subject in secondary education in the Netherlands, called Nature, Life and Technology (NLT). This research note describes the design of a generic model for a professional…

This study explored how teachers and school administrators connect large-scale assessment results with school improvement planning. Using a semi-structured format, 20 teachers and 17 administrators were interviewed from two school districts in southern Ontario, Canada. The interview protocol contained a range of questions related to teaching and…

This evaluation used a change transition model to explore the processes of development of a three-phase professional programme devised by two teams of researchers to support teachers' expertise in six domains of science teaching. The full programme operated over two years. Interviews with developers at the end of each phase (21 interviews) and…

Improving professional learning for educators is a crucial step in transforming schools and improving academic achievement. To meet federal requirements and public expectations for school and student performance, the nation needs to bolster teacher skills and knowledge to ensure that every teacher is able to teach increasingly diverse learners,…

This article describes a study on the module-based online professional development project. The professional development model providing a basis for the Reading CEU (continuing education unit) Module Project involved four groups of stakeholders: master teacher instructors, module participants, module developers, and the university support team.…

To enhance effectiveness, teachers should analyze memories of successful learning experiences and teachers, share enthusiasm about their subject with students, blend plans for professional and personal growth, choose appropriate teaching and classroom-management styles, develop portfolios charting progress, participate in support groups, and build…

The United States is transitioning to an information age society, requiring that the citizens and workers of the future be highly literate in their use of information. Information literacy is the ability to evaluate, analyze, and apply critical thinking to the use of information. Educators need to answer basic questions about how students become…

This paper describes some of the issues involved in refining Internet-based, asynchronous conference forums to meet the learning needs of adult students in distant inservice and graduate courses. The paper focuses on an analysis of existing instruction delivery systems and explores identification of optimal environments for inservice professional…