For some years now, teachers in the post compulsory sector have been lambasted in educational circles for what some perceive as the poor quality of teaching and learning in classrooms. Such criticisms have tended to emanate from those responsible for inspecting the sector's provision. In fact, when Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education) and…

Purpose: The study was undertaken to determine and understand the career investment behavior of workers in late career (ages 50-70). Design/methodology/approach: The common wisdom, supported by economic theory, is that human capital investments in late career workers are of negligible value. Yet, recent evidence suggests that older workers do…

This inquiry applied an innovative sociocultural framework to examine transformations in preservice teachers' professional development as they worked with children at-risk in a summer literacy camp. The camp incorporated a community of practice model in which teams of masters and doctoral students mentored small groups of preservice teachers. The…

This study evaluates the success of collaborative dialogue between students and co-operating teachers as a follow-up to in-service education and teaching (INSET). Current INSET programmes are on the whole found to be insufficient due to the fact that they do not provide the participant teachers with opportunities to reflect on their own…

This article explores a reciprocal relationship between leadership capacity and collective efficacy in a pre-K-8 school in the Southern United States that continually advances as a professional learning community. Survey data from this mixed methodology study showed significant positive correlations among subgroup scales measuring leadership…

Creating learning communities in low-performing districts and schools is especially daunting in an era of accountability and standards-based assessment. This article describes research that informed application of Southwest Educational Development Laboratory's Working Systemically model for increased student achievement. The article highlights 4…

In a recent "Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education" article, the author reported on a single case of a successful mentor-beginning teacher pairing that was derived from a larger qualitative study (Certo, 2005). The purpose of this article is to report findings from that larger investigation. Three Virginia elementary 1st-year…

This study examines MSW students' satisfaction with the integration of spirituality content into the social work curriculum at a nationally recognized university. The results showed that, when compared with cohort sections without such content, satisfaction with inclusion of topics related to spirituality were significantly higher for two courses.…

This article reports a study conducted to identify the needs for continuing professional development for life insurance sales representatives and to examine the competencies needed by those sales representatives. A modified Delphi technique was used. Most life insurance companies in the USA implement an education and training plan advocated by the…

In the not too distant past a person's skills, knowledge, understanding and competence were judged largely on the initial education and training that he or she had undertaken, with continuing professional development (CPD) being seen as an optional extra by those who had enthusiasm for it. Gradually CPD has come to be recognized as an important,…

This article explores the factors that contributed to personal learning and development as a result of being a member of a collaborative action research project group. The project took place in a university School of Education, and involved five lecturers and the students they were supervising for their dissertations. Data were collected by…

In this article, the author discusses her varied reactions to Larry Cuban's most recent book, "How Scholars Trumped Teachers," which discusses 100 years of discussions resulting from the tension between research and teaching responsibilities of scholars at Stanford University. The article begins with a brief description of Cuban's analysis, which…

The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a relationship between learner personality types and perceived satisfaction when using Web-based instruction for mandatory and self-regulated continuing professional development. Two hundred and four real estate practitioners who participated in a Web-based professional development course…

This paper presents several brief papers about the process of systemic change. These are: (1) Step-Up-To-Excellence: A Protocol for Navigating Whole-System Change in School Districts by Francis M. Duffy; (2) The Guidance System for Transforming Education by Charles M. Reigeluth; (3) The Schlechty Center For Leadership In School Reform by Monica…

In this article, the author describes Cecilia Braslavsky's pioneering work in the training of academics and technical-professional teams in Argentina. She divides the paper into two parts. The first one covers a period (between 1983 and 1993) in which Cecilia, along with other intellectuals from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences,…