In this article I discuss the potential of professional learning communities (PLCs) within the South African education context using a practice theory lens. PLCs are presented by the Department of Basic Education (DBE) as collaborative learning communities that are fundamentally social and should be established in all schools (DBE, Republic of…

In a European project about formative assessment, Local Working Groups (LWGs) from six participating countries made use of a format for teacher-researcher collaboration. The activities in each LWG involved discussions and reflections about implementation of four assessment formats. A key aim was close collaboration between teachers and researchers…

Class swapping is the process whereby a generalist primary school teacher with a particular subject expertise and interest swaps classes with a teacher colleague and they teach each other's class a specific area of the curriculum. Instances of class swapping for physical education (PE) have been noted in many countries, but there is currently no…

Graduate student and postdoctoral teaching assistants receive highly variable preparation for instructional methods because providing such training is often expensive. Therefore, we conducted an intensive, pedagogical boot camp followed by classroom observations, structured professional development discussions about leveraging the experience on…

This project report presents a multidisciplinary Faculty Learning Community model to foster civic engagement in STEM classes. It focused on first-year Chemistry, Math, and Scientific Inquiry courses and incorporated Academic Service Learning in a project to build solar cell phone chargers for a school in Puerto Rico recovering from the effects of…

Classroom dialogue has been the focus of educationists' attention for over 60 years (Myhill 2018), most recently manifest in the work of Alexander (2017); Edwards-Groves & Davidson (2017); Resnick, Michaels & O'Connor (2010) and Mercer, Dawes & Kleine Staarman (2009). In concert with this work, systemic functional linguists have…

Educational providers frequently respond to learning disruptions encountered by refugees, internally displaced persons, and migrant communities through online platforms. Learning modules in these digital spaces are often remotely designed, prescriptive and lack full appreciation of challenging circumstances faced by teachers and learners. To…

Purpose: In 2022 generative AI took the Internet world by storm. Free access to tools that can generate text and images that pass for human creations triggered fiery debates about the potential uses and misuses of generative AI in education. There has risen a need to check the popular utopian and dystopian narratives about AI against the diversity…

In England, education reforms in 2014 and 2019 place more emphasis on inclusive policies and practices. How are school teachers meeting this new requirement for better inclusion of pupils with special educational needs and disability (SEND)? Do collaborative practices have a part to play? These questions are addressed within the research project…

In telecollaboration research, scholars have broadened their focus from the purely linguistic details of online intercultural encounters to include its multimodal dimensions. Yet, no study to date has explored spatial repertoires, namely the totality of semiotic resources (e.g., speech, image, objects) embedded in a particular environment and used…

This policy brief examines the impact of Solution Tree's PLC at Work® process on student achievement in Texas schools. Using a quasi-experimental design and statewide data, we found that students in Model PLC Schools made meaningful academic gains, averaging 3.1 months of additional learning in math and 2 months in reading compared to similar…

This report evaluates the impact of the Professional Learning Communities (PLC) at Work® process on student academic achievement over a three-year period in Texas public schools. Drawing on linked administrative data from the University of Houston Education Research Center (UH-ERC), the study uses a quasi-experimental approach to compare…

Aylie Davidson introduces a model for collaborative teacher planning that arose from the work she did with teachers as part of her PhD research. She identifies five ingredients for planning mathematical learning sequences that when used in combination with the model, enhance the quality and rigour of teachers' mathematics planning and subsequent…

The four B's framework described in this article grew out of the authors' global study of "collaborative professionalism" (Hargreaves & O'Connor, 2017, 2018). They define collaborative professionalism as ways educators work together with depth, trust, and precision to achieve impact. The authors then set out to study how it manifests…

This article is the result of a professional collaboration between two educationists (working originally in the fields of mathematics and science education), who share a passion for exploring collaborative approaches to the professional development of educators. It extends ideas explored in earlier work by focusing on the concept of professional…