In an era where teachers are increasingly being asked to demonstrate evidence of their impact, action research is identified as a practical and critically reflective research approach for enhancing explicit teaching and learning. Using a historical perspective, foundations for reflective practice and action research in educational contexts are…

Despite the efforts of traditional and alternative teacher education programs (i.e. pre-service teacher education) in the United States, teachers frequently report feeling unprepared by the time they begin teaching full time in the classroom. Teachers with low levels of self-efficacy are correlated with lower job satisfaction, higher levels of…

Teacher growth and development are heavily focused on best practices, the technical aspects of teaching, often at the exclusion of deep practices, the heart-focused dimensions of teaching. Using an action research methodology, researchers offer a practical framework for coaching teachers on ways to develop the deep practices that underscore the…

Research has shown that teachers and students have difficulties in connecting climate change evidence with climate change claims. Such difficulties may come from the lack of knowledge about how scientific models and modeling work in climate science. Climate change as a complex system with a large time and land scale requires sophisticated…

The four zone professional learning model is a practical, comprehensive approach to striving toward equity through professional learning within gifted education programs. Grounded in equity literacy and funds of knowledge frameworks and based in best practices in culturally responsive gifted professional learning, the zones address the knowledge…

Successful implementation of the current English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum invites a new approach to teacher professional learning (PL). A focus on establishing and renewing relationships must play a role in developing the collaboration necessary for curriculum implementation. This article presents a research-based argument that effective and…

Action research (AR) is a form of systematic inquiry by which practitioners address their own problems of practice. Professional development (PD) is a means by which teachers contribute to school improvement and student achievement. Too little research has gathered the qualitative perceptions of former participants in action-oriented professional…

The focus of practice for the study was to build and sustain a cohesive and consistent instructional leadership team by supporting the growth and development of assistant principals as instructional leaders. This study took place in a mid-sized, high school setting in rural Eastern North Carolina. The study aimed to develop assistant principals'…

The Learning study and the Educational Action Research approaches to educational research are compared, not from a third, neutral point of view, but from the perspective of the former. Hence, the comparison is carried out in terms of how the main point of departure of the Learning study (LS), the question of 'What is to be learned?', is addressed…

Collaboration between teachers and academics can have a sustainable impact on teachers' professional development. Accordingly, the aim of the study was to investigate the effect of the academic counseling model (ACM) based on academic-teacher collaboration on the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of in-service teachers. The ACM consists of five…

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…

Restorative justice practices (RJP) in schools is an increasingly popular approach to responding to discipline showing modest effectiveness. However, there is little research within the school consultation literature that examines the use of RJP. In over a decade, there have been only six studies. These studies are reviewed and directions for…

This conceptual paper reviews the extant literature on action research/teacher led inquiry and answers the question: How and in what circumstances can action research improve teachers' classroom practice and therefore what might be the implications for school improvement? A critical analysis of the nature and purpose of action research as a…

The purpose of this article is to provide an educational, theoretical, and methodological framework for using a special kind of action research, namely PALAR (participatory action learning and action research). This integrated methodology of lifelong action learning (AL) and participatory action research (PAR) has been developed over the past…

This article addresses the need for 'coherent, holistic frameworks offering insightful understandings as well as viable, connected and synergistic solutions to schools'. We describe a model which emerged from a research study developed in the context of a professional development course attended by more than 150 teachers from primary and secondary…