When it comes to changing one's behavior, what makes a person ready to change? In this study, mentors participated in interviews and focus groups about early childhood educators' readiness to change their practices with children. One third of the educators were rated by their mentors as "not ready to change" as measured by the Stage of Change…

Sabbaticals have been identified as an important tool to help faculty remain current in their responsibilities. By having a dedicated break from traditional responsibilities, faculty members have self-reported rejuvenation and recommitment to their professional work. Institutional policies, however, are largely vague and lack measures to help…

This November, CTE professionals from all over the country will assemble in the beautiful state of Georgia for CareerTech VISION 2012. With the total redesign of this event, this opportunity will no doubt prove to be one of the greatest professional development opportunities ever offered by the Association for Career and Technical Education…

As a career and technical high school, Middle Bucks Institute of Technology in Jamison, Pennsylvania, has risen to the challenge of preparing students with 21st-century skills through rigorous academics, technical knowledge, and professional development. Everyone, from the administrative director to the classroom teacher, needs to understand their…

Principal David Wheeler of Southeastern Regional Vocational-Technical High School founded LE[superscript 3]AD Academy--an innovative program that gives students the opportunity to build and run their own town in teams and with guidance from teachers. The program started in the spring of 2011, and it is innovative in many ways. The students' main…

This article reports the results of the investigation into institutional support provided to adults by 12 novice consultants on assessment and recognition of their non-formal and informal learning in four institutions of higher education (HEIs) in Lithuania. Using the general systems perspective and perception theory, novice consultants'…

Though the number of women employed in the workforce has increased, there continues to be an inequity in employment of women in the highest ranks of community colleges. Guided by gendered organizational theory, the study looked at both overt and covert knowledge of genderedness at community colleges. As one might infer, institutional genderedness…

Purpose: This paper aims to gather empirical evidence for what colleagues from different organizations reported they learned from informal professional learning conversations. Informal learning conversations with colleagues is a powerful yet understudied source of self-directed, professional development. Design/methodology/approach: This study of…

Increasingly, professional training programs are dealing with the need for competency-based assessments of student learning outcomes. This is particularly challenging in fields such as school psychology, with competencies identified by multiple accrediting bodies and state requirements. The primary goal of this study was to examine the degree to…

We review the ontological and pedagogical origins of International Development graduate education in the context of increasing pressures to "professionalise" graduate curricula. We apply Giroux's concept of "vocationalisation" to argue that professionalisation risks undermining the field's intellectual foundations in an elusive…

This article addresses West Virginia's public schools, and their long struggle with student achievement levels in reading and math. Levels are significantly below the national average and there are poverty-based achievement gaps within the state. In 2013, a cross section of educators and education policy leaders from a range of experiences,…

In the Post RN BScN curriculum, one of the courses "Professional Development and Leadership (PDLM)" was offered as blended mode for the first time. In order to explore the students' interactions and Cognitive Engagement (CE) in Online Discussion Forums (ODFs), the research team conducted a retrospective study for the first time at a…

Research into Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS) in Higher Education has largely focused on the positive effects of PASS on student motivation, retention and engagement. Less attention has been given to the cognitive, affective and professional development of the PASS Student Mentors through their engagement with students and academic staff. At…

This study developed learning progression-based measures of science teachers' content knowledge (CK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). The measures focus on an important topic in secondary science curriculum using scientific reasoning (i.e., tracing matter, tracing energy, and connecting scales) to explain plants gaining weight and…

Retraining and upskilling of human resources in organizations are deemed vital whenever a reform takes place, or whenever a huge policy is being implemented on a comprehensive scale. In an education system, officers, principals, and teachers need to be retrained so as to enable them implement and manage new changes, which are manifested in the…