Professional organizations can play an important role in the lives and work of educators. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore Alabama educators' experiences with membership in statewide professional organizations and to determine what benefits, if any, members feel their organizations provide them. Four main benefits that…

Place-based initiatives, such as the federal Promise Neighborhoods grant, attempt to coordinate interventions, supports, and services with a myriad of organizations to targeted communities. Although Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs), inclusive of academic medical institutions, are among the most overall researched anchor institution,…

This dissertation examines the dynamics of research-practice partnerships (RPPs) through a qualitative multiple-case study that explores the boundary work between university researchers and K-12 practitioners. It is framed within Wenger's communities of practice theory and focuses on the concept of 'boundary work,' which is pivotal in…

Many studies highlight the importance of socio-emotional aspects in professional communities of practice (CoP). This study aims to understand how these aspects are articulated with the professional content. An online professional CoP has been subjected to analysis by following a sequential exploratory mixed-methods inductive model combining the…

Over the past two centuries, lesson study has been applied in different countries with different participant profiles. Lesson study is defined as a dynamic research-learning cycle of planning, applying, observing, and analyzing a lesson. Although the participants' discussions in lesson study practices were examined from different perspectives,…

This article examines leadership and practitioner professional learning (PL) across two multi-school networks. This ethnographic empirical study involved the development of research communities comprised of teacher-led research projects in collaboration with academic researchers (ourselves). We explore what the impact this type of PL and our role…

Purpose: To meet the needs of under-resourced, rural schools where teacher attrition is high, this case study examined how a school-university partnership strengthened teacher and leader abilities to support deeper learning for students. Design/methodology/approach: This research focused on a 17-year collaborative partnership between one rural…

In math classrooms, actively engaging with the subject matter can be crucial to learning. However, not all students speak up, ask questions, or express their ideas. Aware of the importance of the equitable participation of all students, mathematics education experts developed an observation tool called Equity Quantified In Participation, or EQUIP.…

Informal community-based science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) clubs provide rich informal learning environments that help elementary-aged students develop STEM knowledge and skills while fostering their initial and continued interests in STEM. This phenomenographical case study sought to interpret stakeholders' (five university…

The article explores the multifaceted process of creating the large-scale annual public puppetry event, The Barrydale Giant Puppet Parade, in the rural town of Barrydale, South Africa. It unpacks the complex layers of meaning and making arising through a co-creative puppetry project in a region of South Africa marked by poverty and the on-going…

The partnership explored in this article offers a high-level view of one university-based research + practice partnership (RPP) with a local informal science institution (ISI) that suggests implications for advancing science education in various contexts. Touching K12 schools, undergraduate coursework, K12 teacher preparation, undergraduate career…

In this paper, we revisit a long-running conversation about situated learning and the design of environments for disciplinary engagement. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, scholars advanced an anthropological critique of the then-dominant acquisitionist paradigm of formal schooling with a situated view focused on membership in communities and…

This paper explores possible affordances of technology and online professional learning to develop and support communities of practice in which educational practitioners develop, share and build on one another's reflections and learning. Evidence is presented from a design-based research study that iteratively designed and developed a mechanical…

This article reports on the program changes that emerged from the Baylor University Ed.D. in Learning and Organizational Change program development team as we engaged as a community of practice in the organizational change process to reframe our conceptualization of the Problem of Practice dissertation. This process led to logical implications for…

This article explores the concept of literacy futurisms as guided by the 2019-2021 Scholars of Color Transitioning into Academic Research Institutions cohort, who conceptualize themselves as part of an emergent literacy research collective. Drawing on the knowledges of our ancestors and children, we offer dimensions of a framework-in-the-making…