Efforts to professionalize counseling practice have yielded extraordinary benefits to counselors. However, professionalization has also caused counselors to adopt strict definitions of their education, practices, and ethics. In order to combat the ideological insularity brought on by professionalization, several marginalized ideas are considered.…

The broad purpose of this self-study is two-fold: first, to aid in redressing the lack of attention given to the professional development of teacher educators; and second, to forward the idea that teaching reflectively is not only an excellent framework through which self-directed professional development can be enacted, but it is also an…

A professional learning network (PLN) is a community of individuals around the world who are learning together. They can start out as strangers, people one couldn't pick out in a crowded room. But Twitter, the virtual meeting place where one's PLN comes together, helps these strangers come together to create a community built on communication and…

The purpose of this research was to determine how teachers and administrators in a successful North Carolina district perceived the purpose and value of required individual growth plans (IGPs). The IGP is the foundation of required school improvement, and the perceptions of the purpose and value of the IGP largely determine its success. This…

In this paper we described how we mixed research approaches in a Randomized Control Trial (RCT) of a school principal professional development program. Using examples from our study we illustrate how combining qualitative and quantitative data can address some key challenges from validating instruments and measures of mediator variables to…

In 2017, the National Technical Assistance Center for the Education of Neglected or Delinquent Children and Youth (NDTAC) released its first in a series of professional development briefs that focus on the professional development needs and interests of neglected or delinquent (N or D) State coordinators, correctional educators, and providers of…

This study examines discrepancies between geoscience career knowledge and biology career knowledge among Mississippi science teachers. Principals and in-service teachers were also surveyed about their perception of geoscience careers and majors. Scores were higher for knowledge of what biologists do (at work) than about what geoscientists do.…

The incorporation of reflective practices in the arena of education has been discussed in different studies in order to understand the development of "practitioners" in a target setting. This article reports on a study aimed at describing the way ten foreign language student-teachers from a public university in Colombia construct their…

Women returners are women who leave the paid workforce for a period of time following the birth of their child(ren) and subsequently seek to return to paid employment. As women returners attempt to re-enter the workforce, many of them are in need of updating their skills or re-training in a new set of skills. In this study, the training and…

Service-learning is, by nature, continually evolving. Seifer (1996) stressed the importance of partnerships between communities and schools, and stated that reflection should facilitate the connection between practice and theory, and lead to critical thinking. Before these reflective activities occur, however, much can be done to maximize…

Thousands of teachers are exploring the boundaries of their practice together on Twitter, in blogs, and at seminars, and they represent a new generation of educators who are actively redefining how innovation occurs in the schoolhouse. For many of these educators, exposure to adjacent possibilities--the first step toward innovation--starts in the…

There is a clear understanding that leaders of faith-based educational institutions shape the school community's culture in ways that assist in faith formation. This implicit and explicit focus on faith formation and an alignment with the broader mission of the Catholic Church is foundational to contemplative leadership (Schuttloffel, 1999, 2008).…

This article considers the impact of a masters' level professional development course about higher education teaching on participants from a UK research-intensive university. Drawing upon in-depth interview data, this article explores the perspectives and experiences of the participants, locating their responses within broader notions of teacher…

To succeed within the increasingly global context of their work environment, today's IT professional needs to be equipped with both cutting-edge technical skills and a strong repertoire of "soft" skills. An important and often unrecognized soft skill is an appreciation of how various IT issues impact upon different peoples and what…

The experience and reflection of participants of the Kansas Educational Leadership Institute (KELI) program are the focus of this article. Many Kansas superintendents face the challenge of working hundreds of miles from colleagues who wear similar hats and work in comparable roles. Often the closest professional mentors or peers live hours away,…