This article reports on a University of the South Pacific (USP) study of supervising lecturers (SLs) and pre-service teacher education students' (PSTs) experiences and reflections on their involvement in the practice teaching component in the degree program for secondary school teachers. Two sets of rich data have emerged from this study. Firstly,…

While researchers broadly agree on what enables and constrains teacher professional learning, reconfigured large teaching spaces potentially create new processes and content for this learning. In this paper we draw on six years of study of teacher adaptation to these settings in 10 schools in regional Australia to identify the nature of, and key…

Professional development plays an important part in enhancing knowledge, skills and expertise for teachers, institutional leaders and educators. While studies on professional development for teachers and school principals have been abundant, little information regarding professional development at the government level has been recorded. This study…

Anecdotally, teachers take up opportunities to mark large-scale assessments because they are told by colleagues that it is 'good PD'. Assertions about the value of marking are passed along with little question. However, research into the benefits of participating as a marker in large-scale marking has not been conducted in the Australian context.…

The work of educators (early childhood teachers) with children in pre-schools, carried out through many learning and educational activities, is an important but quite complex process. This study focuses on professional development for educators that targets challenges in working with children, and aims to enhance their performance based on…

This study reports on the professional learning of two teachers of science who were learning to engage their grade four students in meaningful, hands-on learning. Teachers' learning took place in the context of a 10-month university-based action research program designed to help improve the practice of science, technology, engineering and…

As in many other nations, the Turkish education system has undergone many significant curricular and structural reforms in the last decade. This study was designed to learn from teachers about the quality of professional development programs that were designed to support national reforms. Ten years into a period of intensive national reform,…

Teaching has always been at the core of what it means to practice in the health professions. Health professionals generally accept that as part of their role they will be involved in educating future generations in their discipline. However, whilst health professional educators typically have extensive knowledge and skills in their discipline…

To implement cooperative learning successfully in practice, teachers require knowledge of cooperative learning, its features and terms, and how it functions in classrooms. This qualitative study examined 12 Australian generalist primary teachers', understandings of cooperative learning and perceived factors affecting its implementation. Using…

Tutor development is an essential part of academic staff development, yet is comparatively under-researched. This article examines what tutors value as most and least important in a program. Using data from more than 300 participants in three years, and using the dimensions or worth, merit and success as an analytical framework, the article…

The need for more effective schools and the centrality of the teacher's role in any substantive school improvement plans are well known. Educators, political factions, and policymakers are engaged in a lively debate as to whether performance pay schemes or more substantial increments across the salary schedule are more likely to motivate teachers…

Initial teacher education programs are continuously looking for ways to grow and evolve to meet the changing needs of pre-service teachers (PSTs) who will face a diverse student population when they begin their careers. This study examines a short-term, cross-cultural, service-learning immersion undertaken by 21 undergraduate PSTs to an internally…

Professionals' learning and motivation is regarded as social, situated and constructed. For successful implementation of new professional learning, consideration of both person and context is needed. Individual motivational beliefs regarding activities are, for example, inseparable from and mutually shaped by the social context in which these…

Teacher retention has long been recognised as a significant problem in many education systems, while retaining early career teachers is particularly problematic. Although a variety of interventions have been suggested to support beginning teachers, too little attention has been paid to the importance of enhancing their knowledge about pedagogy in…

This paper focuses on the experiences of an early career researcher involved in a mentoring relationship at the University of Western Sydney (UWS), Australia. A discussion of the research literature is reported to highlight the attributes of mentoring relationships and the different forms of mentoring. The mentoring relationship that the author is…