The professional doctorate creates opportunities for shared research and novel findings to inform and shape the workplace and cultivate professional capital. In this paper I discuss my own journey in undertaking an Educational doctorate. I critique how my methodological approach enabled me to successfully cross the range of boundaries that I…

Fostering the development of Professional Learning communities (PLCs) should be a priority for education because of their capacity to enhance teachers' professional development. However, in everyday educational (school) contexts studying and supporting the growth of PLCs is a complex endeavour. As a consequence, there is a lack of instruments for…

This article reports on the findings of a PhD research project into the improvisatory nature of teacher expertise. The data are taken from a series of comparative case studies of seven experienced teachers working in secondary schools in the South West of England and who have been identified as being expert within their school setting. Constant…

Collaborative inquiry (CI) has emerged as a dominant structure for educator professional learning in the twenty-first century. CI engages educators in collaboratively investigating focused aspects of their professional practice by exploring student responses to instruction, leading to new understandings and changes in classroom teaching. However,…

In recent research, it has been argued that effective professional learning would continue over the long term and is best suited for a school community that promotes learning. This requires an examination of the teachers on a daily basis. In order to develop such a community, it becomes increasingly important for teachers to mutually observe and…

Teachers' professional learning can be enhanced by positioning teachers as practitioner researchers and professionals who are capable of generating change within their local educational communities. In this article a teacher's story is used to show how teacher knowledge was developed and how teachers designed research questions, gathered evidence…

"Unconferences" are a non-traditional form of professional activity defined by the absence of many conventional conference structures. One example of the unconference model is the "Edcamp," a voluntary, participant-driven form of grassroots educator professional learning. More than 600 of these events have been held worldwide…

The Educational Doctorate (EdD) at the University of Wolverhampton offers educational practitioners the opportunity to design a research enquiry based in, on or around their professional work. The cohort, reported on here, embarked upon their EdD studies during the 2007/08 academic year. This study reports on seven participants' learning…