This inquiry focuses on the "overall instructional leadership" approaches used by exemplary principals in three high performing Canadian provinces to overcome three persistent obstacles to effective teacher supervision and evaluation: (a) the management challenge, (b) the complexity challenge, and (c) the learning challenge. Analysis of…

The relationships between teacher and students are interdependent and rely on their mutual interaction. In the classroom, teaching involves daily face-to-face encounters between students and teachers and therefore could be considered a moral as well as an academic issue. A central question is how the teacher can establish and support a learning…

There is a lack of empirical studies that examine the influence of neoliberal ideas in preschool music and teaching. Neoliberal ideas have primarily been studied in a broader educational perspective and related to preschool policy reforms. The aim of this paper is to study preschool teachers' rhetoric concerning music contents and music activities…

Principals' implementation of new teacher evaluation policies in a suburban and rural southeastern area of the United States was examined over a five-year period. This study reports findings on two of eleven interview questions examining changes in principals' perceptions over time regarding policy concerns and benefits. Findings indicate while…

Reflective practice has potentially positive effects on an organization's capacity to focus on student learning and teaching practices. In an effort to comply with policy and provide teachers with opportunities to reflect on their practice, districts, schools, and teachers have turned to various models that feature collaborative experiences. One…

This study examines collaboration between English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teachers and content-area elementary school teachers, and makes the case for conceptualising teacher collaboration as an opportunity for shared teacher learning. Using a sociocultural theoretical lens, this study examines how three pairs of elementary teachers…

This study investigated Iranian high school teachers' conceptions of effective teaching and examined the relationship of those conceptions to their teaching practices. The authors tried to achieve the purpose through questionnaires, observation, and interview. These teachers identified "being student-focused" and "being…

Contemporary research conversations about the utility of practice theories to professional education support the reconceptualisation of pre-service teacher education in ways that provide strong preparation for continued professional learning. This paper reports on an empirical inquiry that introduced a theoretically informed practice-based…

This study explores how two language teachers constructed and reconstructed their professional identities through their action research (AR) facilitated by university researchers in China. Informed by the theory of 'community of practice', the findings of the study show that AR exerted a transformative impact on the teachers' identity development.…

In recent years, a significant problem that has manifested in the quest to capitalise on the pedagogical potential of technology in schools is that veteran teachers are unwilling to integrate these resources into their practices. Given that veteran teachers comprise up to 40% of teachers, their lack of use is important. This paper aims to shed…

This case study research reports on elementary (grade 8) and secondary school (grade 9) teachers' participation in job-embedded, professional learning and engagement in collaborative inquiry. Teachers constructed an inquiry-oriented media literacy unit following the collaborative inquiry model. The current study sought to investigate how…

This longitudinal study aimed to examine the role of a professional learning community (PLC) in changing teachers' beliefs and practices. Teachers of a Chinese department in a Hong Kong secondary school were interviewed and observed. The findings indicate that the features of a PLC-facilitating teacher change are development of a coherent…

This study investigates Korean English teachers' responses to the current English Language Teaching (ELT) policies and reveals the attributes of their professional identity from their responses. Data collected from different narratives demonstrate that the teachers value the principles of communicative language teaching, but are not supportive of…

Background: Policymakers' use of high-stakes exams to improve students' academic achievement affects teachers and their tenure in the field at all levels of schooling. Novice teachers now being inducted into the field have been educated almost exclusively in these high-stakes learning environments. Yet, how their familiarity with these contexts…

This study examines best practices in teaching mathematics to minority students through two case studies conducted at high-minority junior high schools in the USA and Japan. Observations, interviews, and conversations with the teachers in both countries focused on the research question: how do teachers successfully teach mathematics to minority…