The paper seeks to identify how teacher expertise is implicitly and explicitly conceptualised in current English education policy in respect of the professional development of teachers. We focus specifically on conceptualisations of expertise in the Early Career Framework (ECF), both in terms of the policy documentation produced by the Department…

Professional development in policy for K-12 teachers is relatively rare despite the indelible role that teachers play in policy implementation. This study describes the experiences of five teachers who completed the 10-month Texas Education Policy Fellowship Program. Results showed that the experienced classroom teachers garnered the most policy…

Using unique statewide panel data from Tennessee, we describe instructional coach (IC) and teacher peer observer (TPO) distributions in terms of their teaching expertise and observable school and district characteristics. The evidence suggests ICs are more likely to work in districts with lower-performing teachers while working in schools with…

One of the enduring problems in the education system is the gap between theory and practice, where the research to improve teaching and learning is not fully realised in the classroom. This has impacted the effectiveness of education reform. We take a systems thinking approach to better understand the complexity of an education system, which…

The purpose of this article is to make policy recommendations based on the authors' experiences with, and research about, reflective, differentiated, and teacher-generated music teacher professional development (PD). By doing so, we argue for a bottom-up process that capitalizes on our music teacher and music teacher educator expertise along with…

In this study the experiences of Chinese higher education (HE) faculty members at American universities were analyzed to determine whether their experiences were consistent with China's HE reform policy for faculty development, part of China's world-class university reform. Berry's acculturation theory and China's HE reform directives provided the…

While studies have shown that mentoring is central to new teacher development, few investigations have examined what mentors learn about themselves as mentors. The purpose of the study was to illuminate mentor learning. The article reports on two case studies that investigated the development of mentoring expertise over a two-year period. During…

This report describes the early childhood degree programs offered in Arkansas, focusing on variations in program content, age-group focus, student field-based learning, and faculty characteristics, as well as the extent to which Arkansas ECE [early care and education] higher education programs are incorporating early math, family engagement, and…

One current policy in Thai government education is to enhance teachers' understanding of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) educational techniques at every level. This study reports the results of a professional development program to assist 134 in-service teachers from 23 small primary schools in rural of Lopburi Province to…

The title of the 2014 Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA) conference was "Teacher Education, An Audit: Building a platform for future engagement." One of the conference themes was "Professional Experience: What works? Why?" I seized upon this theme and the title of the conference as it afforded me an opportunity to…

For students in U.S. classrooms today, the odds of being assigned to an inexperienced teacher are higher than they have ever been because so many teachers, some in the top 20 percent of effectiveness are leaving the classroom in their first five years. Coggins and Diffenbaugh turn to Daniel Pink's work on drive to determine how to motivate…

Scaling of evidence-based practices in education has received extensive discussion but little empirical evaluation. We present here a descriptive summary of the experience from seven states with a history of implementing and scaling School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS) over the past decade. Each state has been…

Peer review of teaching is recognized increasingly as one strategy for academic development even though historically peer review of teaching is often unsupported by policy, action and culture in many Australian universities. Higher education leaders report that academics generally do not engage with peer review of teaching in a systematic or…

This book's title, "I Used to Think... And Now I Think...", is borrowed from an exercise often used at the end of teacher professional development sessions, in which participants write down how what they've learned has changed their thinking. The resulting essays model the ongoing process of reflection and growth among those deeply committed to…

This report explores the extent to which states (and several large cities) are positioned to provide high quality preschool education on a large scale. States and cities that are already doing so or that could do so with modest improvements offer opportunities for advocacy to advance access to high quality early education as well as for rigorous…