Recent innovations in professional development are rife with a wide array of efforts focused on teacher collaboration. In this essay, we address some of the unexamined assumptions about the nature and significance of interactions in teacher professional collaboration, drawing on the concept of the "fourth wall" from theater and film…

Over the past 50 years physics education research (PER) has grown into a thriving subdiscipline of physics. PER grew out of a desire to approach education research and development from a disciplinary perspective, operating under the assumption that good physics education is deeply rooted in the disciplinary knowledge and practices of physicists.…

The purpose of this exploratory sequential mixed methods study was to understand the impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on job burnout for elementary school principals, as it relates to Maslach's Multidimensional Theory of Burnout, and how to increase the stability of principals in their roles, post-COVID-19, to avoid an exodus of principals from…

Rural school principals often face issues of professional isolation and lack of access to leadership development opportunities, particularly when compared to principals from larger school districts. To address these challenges, the Elgin Children's Foundation launched its Principal Support Program (PSP) in 2017 to support the development of…

An arts curriculum director of an urban, Pre-K-12 school district north of Boston, Massachusetts researched literature about feelings of connectedness and professional learning among itinerant, art teachers. The study employed a framework of communities of practice for itinerant art teachers. The strands found across the literature were the state…

This paper reports on a study of Teacher Support Teams (TSTs) established to generate peer support and collaboration among teacher and nurse educators at a Norwegian university. In TST groups, educators share experiences from their own teaching practices and support one another in solving work-related problems. By the use of interaction analysis,…

This art-based research study seeks to examine teaching artists' current perspectives on the models of training and support provided to them by their employers. The study was conducted with a group of teaching artists exploring two key research questions: What models of training and support do teaching artists receive? What are teaching artists…

The pandemic has amplified and exacerbated many of the existing challenges facing the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC) and forced the field to innovate and change much of what had become the status quo. The McCormick Center has a 30-year history of providing intensive (6-12 months in duration), cohesive (curriculum content is…

Through a single-case study design, the research study described in this article examined one rural Canadian school division's use of teacher-directed collaborative action research as a mediating tool for teacher learning within a professional development (PD) initiative known as the Numeracy Cohort. The PD initiative brought together a dozen K-12…

During 2017-2018, CEELO conducted a professional learning community (PLC) to support leadership development among newly appointed, high-level leaders of early education in state education agencies. The goal of the PLC was for participants to increase awareness, gain critical knowledge and develop leadership skills needed to guide highly effective…

This study aims at: (1) reviewing the underlying causes of teacher isolation; (2) unrevealing the negative effects of isolation on teachers' professional and personal life; (2) illustrating different modes of voluntary collaboration among teachers; (4) presenting substantive evidence is support of collaboration as an efficient mode of professional…

Working at a distance brings several benefits, often offset by several detriments. One aspect of working at a distance is the difficulty in sharing successes and promoting accolades. These successes may be personal, team, program, or institutional. But, as a distance worker it can seem daunting or even futile when attempting to "toot your own…

This study investigates the experiences of a group of classroom teachers who transitioned into administrative roles as vice-principals in a rural schoolboard in southwestern Ontario. We included both elementary and secondary former teacher leaders who moved into the school administration and explored the aspects of their leadership experience that…

Entry into the Fellowship of Staff and Educational Development Association is through the production of a professional portfolio which evidences the applicant's achievement of the Fellowship requirements. Supporting and Leading Educational Change takes participants through the Fellowship process. The 12-week online course combines theory of…

This article presents a professional development programme which brought an indigenous minority group of tertiary staff together. We describe a peer-mentoring model, piloted in 2009 at The University of Auckland, New Zealand with university staff in order to promote staff advancement. The participants were all Maori, the indigenous people of New…