Between 1990 and 2010, the demographics of Everett, Massachusetts underwent significant change. Families that were new to the community, and new to the United States, arrived to the predominantly white working-class community, bringing ethnic and linguistic diversity. Everett Public Schools faced a challenge in accommodating a more diverse student…

The purpose of this study was to gather in-depth information about teachers' experiences with accessibility features and accommodations in the classroom and on assessments. Expanded options for accessibility, beyond accommodations, has accompanied the increased implementation of technology-based assessments. Asynchronous online focus groups were…

The Better Math Teaching Network (BMTN) is a networked improvement community of researchers, teachers, and instructional leaders from New England who use improvement science principles to increase the number of students who are actively and deeply engaged in algebra content. The BMTN's second year of implementation occurred during the 2017-18…

Science education in the US entered a period of reform in 2011 with the development and implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The NGSS have subsequently been adopted in 18 states. School districts within these states are in the process of adjusting science curricula to align with the academic expectations described by the…

The study referred to in this article adopted a dialogic approach, putting the voices of experienced teachers and supervisors into the form of a dialogue in order to examine how both parties perceive, enact and justify their pedagogical practices in actual school settings. Various sets of data were utilised, including interviews, classroom…

We examined how an inquiry group composed of a university professor, 3 doctoral students, and a grade-level team of 7th- and 8th-grade teachers negotiated their collaborative work. This effort resulted in the development of a 2-week unit that tapped into students' out-of-school knowledge. Our research question asked how learning occurs within a…

The development of teacher professional learning communities (PLC) has attracted growing attention among practitioners, policy-makers and researchers. The aims of this study were to identify typologies of professional learning teams based on measures of professional learning engagement, and assess their linkages with teachers' value orientations.…

Extension staff are increasingly challenged to do excellent work and balance their lives. University of Maine Cooperative Extension committed to a 2-year participatory action research project to support staff and to an organizational climate that encourages personal sustainability. With tools from ethnography and appreciative inquiry, staff…

Teachers in many countries live the language of standards although it is confined to uniformity and standardization. In the United States, for example, teachers teach to what is now called the Common Core State Standards that focus on students' college and career readiness while falling short of developing good judgment and wisdom. In this…

Within the phenomenographic research tradition, the "object of learning" depicts the capability that is to be learned by the learner. It has been argued that the object of learning cannot be fully known in advance since what is to be learned depends on the learners as well as on the content taught. The object of learning and its nature…

This research aimed to analyse the induction experiences of preservice mathematics teachers during their school placements through the lens of communities of practice. The main research question was concerned with how preservice mathematics teachers perceive what constitutes the practice of a professional community of mathematics teachers. A…

This quantitative study investigated and compared the development of professional learning communities in schools located in two Chinese cities, namely, Shanghai and Mianyang. The two cities have significant differences in terms of educational, economic, social, and cultural development. While Shanghai is a directly controlled municipality in East…

This paper explores the controls and influences over geography teachers' curriculum making. A tension is identified between the teacher's agency to "make" a geography curriculum and a controlling social-economic climate of accountability, performance pressure and technological change which limits the teacher's agency. The paper argues…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine what school leadership practices are associated with a school's level of instructional collaboration among school professionals and also investigates what school characteristics are linked to the level of instructional collaboration in a school. Design/methodology/approach: This study drew data from…

In this article we present the Nordic Network for Action Research, established in 2004. We describe how the network has explored, bridged and nurtured the inherent action research dynamics of ideology and methodology. This has been done through an understanding anchored in educational traditions, and by focus on three important ideal-shaping…