Recent policy initiatives in the United Kingdom within the field of disability have rightly highlighted the importance of hearing the child's voice. However, it is also imperative that professionals work effectively together to enable this to happen. This study presents the perspectives of teachers, speech and language therapists and teaching…

The need for reflection is widely written about and positioned as a key aspect of continuing professional development. This paper examines the manner in which practitioners are encouraged to be reflective within the English system and the barriers they face. It questions whether such a complex, reaffirming system can allow for genuine critical…

A study of new teachers with science degrees but little or no training in education found that coaches who spent time in their classrooms provided the most effective support for new teachers. Science methods courses provided by a university also were very helpful for the new teacher. But academic mentors for science content and teacher mentors who…

One of the dominant themes of the literature on language in Hong Kong is the belief that English, particularly its spoken form, plays a limited role in the lives of the territory's mainly Cantonese-speaking Chinese community. For this reason, it is argued, there is no societal basis for the development of a nativised variety of English. One of the…

Bringing together two evidence-based "best practices" in developmental education--learning communities and tutoring--seems natural, especially given that they share collaborative learning as a common pedagogical approach. And yet doing so raised questions around the role of the tutor in learning communities. In this article, a faculty development…

This research study used in-depth interviews to examine a professional development book club of teacher educators exploring their beliefs about language diversity and how to prepare future teachers for culturally and linguistically diverse schools. Findings include the centrality of lived experiences, conflicting ideas of high-quality pedagogy and…

This article originates in a networking project that facilitated the coming together of a group of Skills for Life (SfL) teachers from different Further Education (FE) contexts across the West Midlands region of England. The original impetus was to explore and develop a model of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) that was shaped by the…

An Illinois district brings a local university into the district to craft advanced learning embedded in the needs of specific schools. Community High School District 155 in Crystal Lake, Ill., and Northern Illinois University (NIU) College of Education engaged in a partnership that has provided significant benefits, posed limited challenges, and…

Teachers of young children work hard to be professional and to be viewed by others as professionals. These efforts to maintain professionalism must include e-professionalism. E-professionalism involves behavior related to professional standards and ethics when using electronic communication (Evans & Gerwitz, 2008). Cellular telephones, social…

There's no doubt that children's home environments have a huge impact on the kind of people they become. But so do their educational environments. A number of schools are beginning to realize it's worth it to spend the time on "soft" skills such as empathy. Even forgetting the recent scary headlines about bullying, teachers know that a classroom…

This article summarizes the findings of a study that examined instruction in early childhood classrooms where teachers participated in high-quality, sustained, and intensive professional development through an Early Childhood Educator Professional Development partnership on literacy practices essential to school success. Comparisons made between…

This case study analysed the circumstances during a one-year work placement in which a pre-service teacher showed professional development, with a focus on the impact of her interactions with various interlocutors. The study was conducted within the framework of the cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) and of activity theory with its methods…

Reflective practice means that teachers must subject their own teaching beliefs and practices to critical examination. One way of facilitating reflective practice in ESL teachers is to encourage them to engage in classroom observations as part of their professional development. This paper reports on a case study of a short series of classroom…

Despite 60 years of evidence linking juvenile illiteracy and delinquency, practitioners and policymakers have been painfully slow in the implementation of evidence-based reading interventions for incarcerated juveniles. We will present the Texas Juvenile Justice Tiered Instructional Model, an evidence-based reading program model created…

The purpose of this article is to propose performance as a creative instructional strategy to convey complex competencies related to understanding and working effectively with families in early childhood education. Performance derives from performance ethnography, which is a qualitative research methodology. Its application to professional…