Many reforms in past decades have come and gone without having the desired impact on teaching practices. Two shared ideals that reforms have had are offering challenging content by using whole tasks and tailoring student guidance to what students need for effective learning. In this article, we aim to bridge the reform-practice gap by taking a…

Research in developing teacher and learner thinking highlights the challenges in translating theoretical constructs into changed practice. One Australian study tracked teacher thinking across school contexts over the proposed three-year timeframe of one professional learning programme. The programme framed a shift in learner and teacher thinking…

The current study is a collective self-study on how we as 15 teacher educators at a university in Norway tried to improve our teaching through working with cases with the aim of better supporting student teachers in making links between theory and practice. We wanted to address the common criticism in teacher education concerning a perceived gap…

This study deals with novice teachers' mentors' conceptions of mentoring prior to their mentoring training. In Israel, all novice teachers have to be supported and assessed by a mentor during their first year of teaching. The aim of this study was to elicit from prospective mentors their own conception of professional mentoring, as a basis for…

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…

This study explores the specific characteristics of teacher-educator professional development interventions that enhance their transformative learning towards stimulating the inquiry-based attitude of students. An educational design research method was followed. Firstly, in partnership with five experienced educators, a professional development…

This paper explores the role of teacher educators in schools and universities in England and the changes that have arisen within the field of initial teacher training (ITT) as a result of the Coalition Government's (2010-2015) School Direct initiative. The discussion which follows and the conclusions suggested are live, current and of pivotal…

There is limited research investigating models of partnering between University and Schools in initial teacher education (ITE). This project investigated, over a 10 year period, how student teachers in an English University on a one year course, draw on theoretical models, introduced in university sessions, when planning for a 'creative week'…

This article presents a case study aiming at deepening the understanding of action research as a tool in professional development in pre-service teacher education. The case is the practice of action research in a teacher education programme for secondary school teachers in Norway. While there has been limited research on consequences of inquiry,…

A recurrent discussion in the field of education is how to build linkages between educational research and school practice. Cross-professional collaboration between researchers and school practitioners can contribute to the interplay between practice-based research and school development. The aim of our study is to obtain a better understanding of…

This qualitative study explored how two early-career teacher educators analysed and challenged pedagogical approaches within their curriculum methods courses via the collaborative self-study methodology. Our critical friendship revealed similar problems of enactment and tensions in our pedagogies of teacher education, despite the differences in…

This article is based on the principle that teacher development is a life-long process when seeking to develop professional competencies. With the changing views of teacher education as background, the benefits to teachers associated with practice-oriented knowledge are predicated on a measure of empowerment through narration, self-expression and…

Professional learning and development (PD) programmes play an important role in improving professionals' ability to teach and provide for the children and young people they work with. This article reviews literature relating to components considered important to successful general and autism spectrum disorder (ASD)-focused PD. It then describes…

Across the country of Ethiopia, a centrally planned and prescribed professional development programme was implemented in schools, with the intention of enhancing teachers' knowledge, skills and disposition, thereby improving student learning and achievement. This article explores and describes the lived experiences of teachers involved in…

Continuing professional development (CPD) evaluation in education has been heavily influenced by "level models", deriving from the work of Kirkpatrick and Guskey in particular, which attempt to trace the processes through which CPD interventions achieve outcomes. This paper considers the strengths and limitations of such models, and in…