For my dissertation requirement, I conducted two research projects, collaborating with my dissertation advisor on both projects. In my first project, I employed a phenomenology methodology to investigate how teachers' professional needs, practices, and motivations align with the goals of the professional learning community to enhance teacher…

The nature of knowledge and how it is developed have been debated in philosophy and research for centuries. In the literature on teachers' knowledge, two perspectives have been particularly visible. One perspective stresses cognitive processes and deliberate knowledge acquisition. Another perspective stresses the situated nature of teachers'…

This paper demonstrates how the features and affordances of open learning have been developed in new and productive ways to provide school-based continuing professional development for teachers in Zambia. It presents and critically reviews data from 200 teachers who have taken part in phase 1 of the Zambian Education School-based Training (ZEST)…

Most research on peer observation as a professional development intervention in EFL contexts focuses either on teachers' perceptions about its usefulness or the methodical frameworks. There are a few studies which report realtime incidence of a peer observed lesson. To fill this gap, the present study arranged a peer observation for a reading…

"A Commitment to Teaching: Toward More Efficacious Teacher Preparation" introduces the reader to a collection of thoughtful works by authors that represent current research and thinking about teacher self-efficacy and teacher preparation. It is the intent of the book to provide the reader with current and relevant knowledge concerning…

Training writing center tutors to work collaboratively with students on their writing is a complex and challenging process. This practitioner action research uses critical discourse analysis (Gee, 2014a) to interrogate tutors' understandings of their work, as expressed in their written reflections on video-recorded tutoring sessions, to facilitate…

As our post-secondary landscape evolves to address the needs of the next generation of learners and future educators, it is important to explore the potential conflict between the teaching methods employed by teacher educators and what we ask our pre-service teachers to enact. Amid the challenges facing many teacher preparation programs (including…

This review of literature highlights the efforts teacher educators and researchers have made over the past 18 years to work toward social justice in secondary English language arts (ELA) preservice teacher (PT) education. Drawing on Dantley and Green's framework for social justice leadership, we highlight the work that teacher educators have…

This paper deals with the topic of professional development programmes' impact. Concepts and ideas of action research, constructivism, and systems theory are used as a theoretical framework and are combined to describe and analyse an exemplary professional development programme in Austria. Empirical findings from both quantitative and qualitative…

Teacher's conceptions are important as they could have a strong influence on their professional practices. This study set out to explore Fijian teacher's conceptions of assessment. Seventy teachers enrolled in an assessment course at a university in Fiji were involved in this study. Data was collected by asking teachers to write a reflection on…

This article explores the development of culturally relevant teaching practices of non- Native teachers in First Nations communities. The findings were gathered from a qualitative study that asked First Nations and non-Native educators what they believed non-Native teachers needed to know about cultivating student success for First Nations…

The success of science education reform initiatives depends considerably on the teachers. Effective professional development opportunities have been shown to encourage and support teachers in their adoption of inquiry-based teaching practices. In particular, it has been argued that an effective means for science teachers to learn about science…

This study investigated issues surrounding the implementation of competence based curriculum in Tanzanian secondary schools. The specific objectives of the study were to examine the teachers' understanding of the objectives of competence based curriculum; to investigate the teachers' abilities in preparing competence based lesson plans; to examine…

This study seeks to understand the meaning of the experiences of a group of nine diverse educators who participated in a five-day, residential, intensive seminar known as the Teaching for Educational Equity (TFEE) seminar in 2010. Particular attention is devoted to a small subset of four educators who have continued to meet and work together…

This article discusses the findings of a large scale mixed-methods study (2006-2010) conducted on a variety of early professional experiences of beginning primary teachers in the Republic of Ireland.