Science teachers struggle to implement and sustain new curricular ideas from professional development (PD) experiences. These PD opportunities are crucial for enacting real-world changes to teaching practice and address pressing global challenges, such as the teaching and learning of socioscientific topics nested in school communities.…

This culminating article synthesizes the collection of articles to discuss conceptualizations of student agency across contexts. Themes that exist across the collection of articles include agency as multidimensional, agency as a navigational tool, and agency as advocacy. In this concluding article, ideas from across the articles are presented to…

New technologies can dramatically change the way people live and work. Jet engines transformed travel. Television revolutionized news and entertainment. Computers and the Internet have transformed just about everything else. And now small video cameras have the potential to transform professional learning. Recognizing the potential of this new…

Adult education programs providing classes to students preparing for high school equivalency and learning English that demonstrate characteristics of learning organizations may be better able to thrive when confronted with less-than-ideal circumstances. Many of these programs organize adult educators into learning communities as the context for…

Research on professional development (PD) typically focuses on what teachers learn as a result of their participation in PD. Questions are framed unidirectionally: To what extent does participation in PD affect teachers' classroom practice? The authors challenge this unidirectional conceptualization of teacher learning and instead argue for…

Achievement gaps concern educators at all levels today. Educators recognize the threats these gaps pose to education quality and equity, and they are working hard to close them--but an equally threatening gap in education with consequences just as serious is largely ignored. It influences every educational-improvement effort and seriously…

A considerable amount of literature on peer coaching suggests that the professional development of teachers can be improved through experimentation, observation, reflection, the exchange of professional ideas, and shared problem-solving. Reciprocal peer coaching provides teachers with an opportunity to engage in such activities in an integrated…

Draws on the authors' experience of developing and presenting an Open University Masters level course: Guidance and Counselling in Learning. Explores the diversity of contexts for guidance practices and the assumptions about the relationship between theory and practice that is embedded in various approaches to professional development. (Contains…

Examines the role of theory in second language teacher education. The article argues that for theory to make sense to teachers, it must be situated in the context of their own thinking. The study cites the creation of professional development schools as one way to provide teachers with a context for theory. (20 references) (Author/CK)

This is the first in a series of articles addressing conceptions of teacher learning, and the implications of these conceptions for improving the practice of teaching. This article provides descriptions of three perspectives on teacher learning: knowledge-for-practice, knowledge-in-practice, and knowledge-of practice (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999).…

In this presentation we will examine the situation of English as a Second Language (ESL) program managers, many of whom are charged with the responsibility of marketing their programs and recruiting students internationally, often with little or no training in how to do so (Eaton, 2005). Not only are they set forth ill-prepared, the repercussions…

This paper concludes our report of an investigation of two beginning teacher educators making the transition from classroom teacher to university-based teacher educator. The authors combined case study and self-study of teacher education practices to investigate features of the institutional context they encountered, the knowledge they employed in…

Identifies personal and contextual factors that make learning from experience for teachers difficult; argues the need to learn more about how teachers learn and what is needed to foster that learning in the school context, while lending insight into the complexity of teacher reflection and teacher learning in classroom environments. (GLR)

A process model for the restructuring of educational administration preparation programs is described, with a focus on program content, delivery, and context. Recommendations are made for utilization of a problem-solving, andragogical approach and for structured administrator preparation programs based on the integration of theory and practice.…

This article is an attempt to make an empirical contribution to a more grounded model of thinking about justice. It focuses on the work of one practitioner working in an inner-London local education authority with a remit relating to the achievement of "African-Caribbean" students. In describing the challenges that she faces in the…