Although Chinese early childhood education policies have high expectations for kindergarten teachers' play pedagogy, teaching and play are still discussed as a bifurcation in Chinese kindergartens' daily practice. To support Chinese kindergarten teachers' development of play pedagogy, this study conducted an educational experiment (EE) framed by…

Purpose: The study seeks to unpack the effect of distributed leadership on teacher professionalism, and the mediating roles of collaborative learning and relational trust in the Chinese cultural context. Design/methodology/approach: The proposed framework was examined based on the questionnaire data from 522 primary and secondary school teachers…

Global policy transfer has become increasingly popular in recent years, and one recent example of such policy transfer is the England-China Teacher Exchange, which was initiated in 2014 with the explicit aim of raising attainment in maths in English primary schools by trialling concepts used in Shanghai schools, Shanghai rising to the top of the…

Purpose: This study explores how lesson study (LS) can promote elementary Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) teachers' professional development (TPD) in terms of new pedagogical practices, attitudes and beliefs in the maker education (ME) context. Design/methodology/approach: This is a case study of a LS conducted in China…

This study examined the relationships between school-level professional learning communities (PLCs) and individual teachers' self-efficacy and commitment based on questionnaire responses from 1,203 teachers from 39 primary schools in mainland China. Multilevel analysis indicated that reflective dialogue significantly predicted self-efficacy.…

The study explored the relationships among instructional leadership, professional learning community components, and teacher self-efficacy in the context of mainland China. Study subjects were 1082 elementary school teachers participating in a questionnaire survey. The results showed that instructional leadership had significant effects on the…

The purpose of this article is to understand the relationship between transformational leadership and collective teacher efficacy in the Chinese primary school context using quantitative research methods. This article also examines the transferability of transformational leadership and its effects in a high power distance culture. The main…

Purpose: This study aimed to explore how a group of Chinese primary mathematics teachers learned through conducting an online cross-cultural lesson study between China and Australia. Design/methodology/approach: An expansive learning theory was adopted to examine teachers' learning through collective activities across different activity systems.…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to provide an alternative approach to teacher learning on top of the usual practices of listening to experts' lectures and conducting school-based activities among peers in China. A boundary-crossing lesson study (BCLS) through school-university partnership served as an example to illustrate how a class…

In the last decade, there has been growing interest in professional learning communities (PLCs) outside mainstream Western contexts. In this paper, we provide a narrative synthesis of empirical studies of PLCs in kindergarten to 12th grade educational systems in mainland China published between 2006 and 2015. The review reveals five major emerging…

This study revolves around an organically lived online community of Chinese elementary teachers. The teachers shared their reflective journals and engaged in conversations with the facilitators and also with their peers. Following one participant's postings over a span of thirteen months helped the research team to narratively explore how the…

Teacher professional learning plays a critical role in education reform by enabling teachers to refine their professional skills and keep up with changing content knowledge, pedagogy, and trends in schooling. This study examines how and under what conditions principal instructional leadership contributes to teachers' professional learning in…

Comprehensively improving the quality of education in resource-poor areas is an urgent challenge to achieve balanced development of basic education in China. In the process of educational development in resource-lacking areas, information technology has: (1) changed the traditional teaching mode and teaching environment, (2) provided high-quality…

Lesson study provides an opportunity for teachers to improve their knowledge and skills of classroom teaching, where a group of teachers collaboratively research, plan, and observe a series of lessons followed by ongoing discussions and reflections. While social interaction between group members plays an important role in collaborative learning…

The key to instructional improvement lies in teacher learning, and teachers' professional learning is best achieved in a professional community. This study compares teachers' communal learning activities in rural and urban schools in China with the aim of illustrating the influence of the professional learning community (PLC) on teachers'…