This paper is based on a study of classroom practice of primary school teachers who were engaged in a programme of professional development to implement formative assessment in their classrooms. The programme sought to develop the skills and expertise of teachers to enable formative assessment to be used to support and improve the learning of…

Much has been written about teachers' professional learning through inquiry into their own practice. The emphasis has been on teachers researching, reflecting and making change in their practice. Despite the wealth of literature concerning teacher inquiry and professional development, there is little about teacher educators with respect to their…

Professionals' learning and motivation is regarded as social, situated and constructed. For successful implementation of new professional learning, consideration of both person and context is needed. Individual motivational beliefs regarding activities are, for example, inseparable from and mutually shaped by the social context in which these…

The year 2003 saw Behaviour and Attendance (B&A) consultants beginning work across the country, supporting (mostly) mainstream secondary schools. They are part of an extensive advisory team which is instrumental in improving standards in schools through the Government's Secondary National Strategy. Their brief was to develop and improve the…

With less than 2% of Americans involved in traditional production agriculture (cows, plows, and sows), agricultural programs at the secondary and postsecondary levels must change to address the workforce of the future. AgrowKnowledge works at the national level to provide tools for changing agriculture, food, and natural resource educational…

In this contribution, we discuss what it means to be a professional teacher with practical wisdom, and how practical wisdom is related to theory and experience. These questions are especially relevant as nowadays, in many countries, teacher education becomes more school-based. Building on theories on the functioning of the human mind in general,…

In this study, we investigate the interplay between context and agency for three early-career academics as they seek to develop their teaching. Our analysis is conducted in light of Archer's realist social theory, framed by critical realism. We argue that it is possible to see ways in which Archer's account of the interplay between structure and…

This study took place in the United States and explored teacher perspectives on the situational factors that influence their professional development using Engestrom's (Engestrom, Y. (1987). "Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research". Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit Oy) four levels of inner contradictions in…

This article features the Boulder Journey School located in Boulder, Colorado. Throughout the first 25 years of the school's existence as a learning community, it has maintained its vision of a school as a place that invites children's learning through relationships and interactions with the environment and with others. However, its vision has…

Day after day, teachers hand out reading assignments; students ignore them; and both groups spend another day at school discouraged, less than enthusiastic, and bored. While principals struggle with stagnant test scores, teachers wonder how they can possibly work more diligently toward instructional outcomes. Getting students excited about reading…

Intrigued by the paths by which K-12 classroom teachers come to publish articles about their work, Anne Whitney undertook a project to clarify the extent and character of contributions classroom teachers have made to three journals that have become the standard-bearers for scholarship directly applicable to language arts classrooms: "Language…

The university is a social institution and as such has a social responsibility to advance knowledge through research that is ultimately meaningful and beneficial to society. As we seek to advance research and graduate education in kinesiology, we must accept ethical standards and professional expectations not only as an institutional value but as…

In the past decade, interest in the form of professional learning loosely described as coaching has exploded. This growing interest in coaching is likely fueled by educators' recognition that traditional one-shot approaches to professional development--where teachers hear about practices but do not receive follow-up support--are ineffective at…

Everyone can agree that the purpose of schools is "student learning," and that the most significant factor in whether students learn well is "teaching quality." Further, teaching quality is improved through "continuous professional learning." The context most supportive of the learning of professionals is the professional learning community (Hord…

Unlike every other developed country, Canada has had no national or pan-Canadian agency that works to support and promote research in education, and especially to build connections between research, policy, and practice. Canada has a national granting council that funds academic research in all fields, including education (the Social Sciences and…