This article presents an action research project conducted in a Swedish compulsory school. In the project the participants explored ways of identifying actions to improve in the practices of a professional learning community in order to develop teaching. This is important for participants in such communities, since the outcome of developed…

Institutions of higher education have a primary mission of providing a quality eduation to all of its student, including students with disabilities. This practice brief describes tools used in an innovative approach to teaching observations that were designed to improve access for students with disabilities through inclusive teaching strategies,…

This article presents a critical reflection on the experiences of three university instructors (two teaching stream and one tenure stream) within a 6-month peer-to-peer mentoring for teaching community of practice (P2P CoP). As part of the P2P CoP, the authors (who were previously unknown to one another) formed a "teaching triad" at a…

The "My Teaching Partner-Secondary" (MTPS) program demonstrated improvements in classroom interactions and student outcomes in secondary schools using one-on-one coaching between study staff and teachers. Despite promising results, the time, cost, and oversight from a university research team may pose barriers to adoption of coaching…

This study explores the processes of collaborative teacher learning in a Lesson Study group at a lower secondary school in Norway. In this context, teacher learning is understood from a sociocultural perspective, as making sense of the world, solving problems and exploring new perspectives through social interaction. Audio-recorded teacher…

Once instructional coach Anne Beaton began creating chances for teachers to get into one another's classrooms to observe and learn about different teaching styles, she realized that not only is studying one another's teaching practices as a community essential in serving students, it also lifts teachers up as leaders. Beaton knew she was learning…

This guidebook is designed to improve instructional supervisory skills of school leaders, teaching practices of teachers, and, eventually, learners' learning outcomes. With the goal of establishing Communities of Practice in schools, this guidebook will surely be a stepping stone towards improving the quality of education in the Philippines. [This…

Middle school students in an urban school district located in the northeastern United States struggled to improve their academic performance. In response to this problem, the superintendent initiated a districtwide professional learning community (PLC); however, students' test scores in five schools declined. The purpose of this basic qualitative…

According to the Michigan Department of Education, between 2011 and 2017, the number of multilingual learners (MLs) enrolled in K-12 schools in the state increased by more than 50%. In 2017, the average teacher to ML ratio in the state was an alarmingly low 1:168. To increase the number of teachers prepared to effectively serve MLs, we developed…

Teacher collaboration, and teacher professional development within this context, has become an area of interest in recent years. In particular, teacher education has seen the rise of collaboration as an effective school-based professional development activity, where in-service teachers plan, observe and reflect on lessons together. The most common…

The authors of this article each present the current situation of their respective educational systems regarding music teacher education, schools and professional development: all of which have undergone massive changes in the last decades. In the UK, this lead to a shift of teacher education away from universities toward school-based training and…

This phenomenological case study examined the link between teacher practice within the classroom and a newly implemented middle school social studies Professional Learning Community (PLC). More specifically, the use of mandates, theories, and activities were investigated through a series of teacher interviews, classroom observations,…

Although the importance of professional development for improved student learning is widely recognized and many studies have been devoted to enhancing its effectiveness, the specific mechanism underlying teacher learning and how it translates into actual classroom practices are not well understood. This paper is an attempt to fill this gap in…

This research involves two case studies, one in Melbourne, Australia the other in Gothenburg, Sweden, that focus on how using observation tools to gather classroom evidence of teaching and learning promoted opportunities to discuss and develop professional practice. We found that dialogues between pre-service teachers and more experienced…

This article focuses on the development of professional learning communities (PLCs), which are communities within schools, composed of voluntary participating teachers facilitated by school principals with a specific task to accomplish as part of a larger innovation project. Four PLCs were observed during 3 years by using questionnaires and…