Twenty-first century problems have forced international policymakers to consider how education might be reimagined so that citizens have the knowledge and skills to respond to the known and unknown challenges ahead and take an active role in the creation of future societies. While it has been suggested that problem-oriented curricular and…

In this paper, I propose shifts in perspective and practice in initial teacher education from the reflective to the diffractive practitioner as a productive way of supporting new teachers to prepare for the complex and non-linear nature of teaching. The reflective practitioner is a figure deeply embedded in humanist and anthropocentric discourses,…

Teachers' perceptions of students' capabilities are particularly important in efforts to support ambitious instructional reforms. In this paper, we explore one teacher's efforts to resolve conflicts and tensions as she engages with new practices associated with ambitious mathematics teaching. While many conflicts arose in the first year of the…

Teachers are often encouraged to work in partnerships to support their professional development. In this article we focus on three forms of working partnerships based in English secondary schools. Each has an intended function of developing teaching practices. The cases of mentoring, coaching and an adapted lesson study come from both initial…

This case study focuses on 11 individual teachers who participate in three distinct professional learning communities (PLCs) within one school. A PLC is "a group of people who take an active, reflective, collaborative, learning-orientated, and growth promoting approach toward the mysteries, problems, and perplexities of teaching and…

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is a demanding new field in terms of content and context and requires whole-school approaches and changes in educational structures. The field's implementation constitutes a great challenge for teachers, novice in the field of ESD. Teacher education for ESD needs to effectively transfer knowledge and…

This qualitative study explored how two early-career teacher educators analysed and challenged pedagogical approaches within their curriculum methods courses via the collaborative self-study methodology. Our critical friendship revealed similar problems of enactment and tensions in our pedagogies of teacher education, despite the differences in…

This paper explores whether teachers' habits and assumptions about their practice can be enhanced by continued professional development through nurturing self-awareness of lived experiences. Within the paper a practical understanding of critical reflection as a process is explored and particular attention is given to Moon's assertion that one…

The purpose of this paper is to use collaborative self-study to analyze and describe our experiences of teaching about teaching in a digital, online environment. Data were gathered from reflective journal entries, emails and monthly Skype calls. Our findings indicate that the perceived disembodiment of teaching and learning online affected how we…

For developing professional development (PD) programs, research suggests referring to effective components. In developing a PD program on classroom dialogue, we explored to what extent effective components could be addressed. We conducted a study with two groups. In the "Dialogic Video Cycle" (DVC), six German teachers participated in a…

This article explores elements of the professional development of a pre-tenured teacher education professor. I am that professor and I trace my journey of growth, which was aided by peer mentoring. First, I present a brief discussion on literature associated with mentoring that I found pertinent, followed by how mentoring has emerged as I…

Research shows that professional development alone does not provide adequate leadership preparation for teachers, yet many develop into established teacher leaders. The purpose of this study was to explore how teachers learn to exercise informal leadership in the schools and districts where they work. Eight elementary teachers who lived and worked…

Self-directed, informal learning is a less recognized and understood form of professional development. Researching informal learning is almost an oxymoron. The process of studying learning contexts, such as informal, self-directed professional development, raises new challenges for researchers. Gaining insights into self-directed professional…

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…