With the continuous development of technology and people's dependence on the Internet, more and more teachers' professional development is carried out on the Internet. Since no one has studied the professional development of online middle school teachers, we did this study based on this research gap. This article is a research on the professional…

For more than a decade practitioners have promoted professional learning communities (PLCs) as an effective structure for providing teachers with professional development (Chappuis, Chappuis, & Stiggins, 2009; DuFour, Eaker, & DuFour, 2005). These collaborative networks are believed to be effective because they expose teachers to new ideas…

Professional learning communities (PLCs)--teams of educators who get together regularly to exchange ideas--have sprung up to meet school districts' growing interest in promoting professional development that engages teachers and administrators. PLCs meet to develop lesson plans, monitor student progress, assess instructional effectiveness, and…

The aim of this study is to reveal how well online communities of practice (oCoPs) help teachers share explicit knowledge and bring their tacit knowledge to the surface. An Internet based oCoP platform called "The Professional Development Circle" (The PDC) was developed for this study. The study was conducted in two phases: 1) a…

Introduction: The perceived information needs of teachers who specialize in reading instruction for at-risk first graders were studied and related to frameworks for the role of social context in information needs, seeking and use. The frameworks considered were: disciplinarity, role theory in work settings, small worlds and information grounds and…

This article provides a model of online professional development that is consistent with recommendations from the fields of teacher education, technology staff development and online learning. A graduate mathematics education course designed and implemented using the model is presented to exemplify the model's core components and interactions. The…

Providing just-in-time job-embedded professional learning using a technologically mediated model achieves professional growth goals and encourages teachers to build digital literacy competencies and incorporate new technologies in instructional approaches in the classroom. This article highlights the lessons learned from an award-winning…

The proliferations of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and an increase in the number of external students and of the digital youth have put considerable pressure upon university staff to adopt ICT in their pedagogy. However, these challenges that include ICT technical skills and pedagogy require staff to continuously engage in…

Recent empirical evidence suggests that the updated DeLone and McLean's information systems (D&M IS) model can identify the determinants of success of online communities in terms of member loyalty (Lin and Lee 2006). This study is similarly concerned with the challenge of identifying the determinants of success of online communities, but it…

The purpose of the present study was to examine the nature of the discourse generated by two different online approaches to mathematics teacher professional development. Thirty mathematics teachers participated in online activities involving analysis and discourse about artifacts of teaching practice. Half were randomly assigned to a group that…

A year-long collaborative action research project used networked technologies to connect researchers at a university-based online professional development program and a group of practitioner researchers based in a range of schools and educational agencies in several countries. They studied the process and effects of online professional development…

This paper reports on the evaluation of a major programme which is using telecommunications to link teachers and pupils both across the political boundary between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and across the boundaries of "mainstream" schooling and those children in "special schools". The paper examines the…

Reports on the creation of a community of practice for teachers' professional development via the World Wide Web. Highlights include theoretical foundations; current online models of professional development; and the Internet Learning Forum, a Web site developed to support mathematics and science teachers. (Author/LRW)

While traditional ways of supervising and evaluating teachers focus on their inputs--their lesson plans and instruction--what really matters most are the outputs: how students perform. So here is a book that helps school leaders transform their supervisory systems into performance-based models that connects to student achievement and teacher…

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is essential to career development for teachers. Teachers can develop their own PCK by research-based activities such as action research and lesson study, with a particular emphasis on the employment of classroom practice, information technology, and collaborative learning. However, in recent studies, most of…