Drawing on empirical data from case study research exploring the working lives and practices of school business leaders in the English school system, this article explores the notion of professional development among this relatively under acknowledged cohort of the school workforce. I adopt the position that professional development must be…

Purpose: This study examines school climate and student achievement trends under an ambitious school leadership residency program in an urban school district. The 2-year leadership residencies were intensive, combining at least 370 hours of professional development with on-the-job training, in which aspiring school principals held either…

The educational system in Mexico has allowed teachers without preparation and training in leadership to pursue leadership positions. This paper presents the findings of a study aimed at analyzing the processes of leadership learning experienced by school principals in the course of their leadership practice. The methodology used was a qualitative…

Researchers have approached to teacher change in different ways: as a learner, as a teacher, and as a colleague. This study aims to analyze teachers' pedagogical changes within the professionally collaborated training program supported with on-the-job visits in their teaching environments. Five elementary mathematics teachers were involved in the…

In 1998, Sturrock and Else introduced the Play Cycle which has been integrated into both playwork theory and practice. An online survey with 157 responses found that playworkers' understanding Play Cycle varied to how they were first introduced to the theory. In addition, understandings of the six elements of the Play Cycle were significantly…

Increasingly, teachers are considered accountable for continuous improvement in student achievement. They are expected to integrate and analyse data from multiple sources in order to make decisions aimed at positively influencing student outcomes. Given the growing recognition of the importance of data-informed decision making in teaching, it is…

This manuscript presents a conceptual heuristic to describe the development of a shared understanding of both collaboration and ambitious mathematics instruction within the context of a school-based improvement initiative. Based on empirical evidence from a two-year study in four elementary schools, we argue that the school community first learned…

Leaders in the business community often talk about the "skills gap," the gap between the skills needed for good jobs in the economy and the skills that prospective employees possess. Though there is debate as to whether or not such a gap actually exists, the idea of the "skills gap" can be a helpful way to frame instances where…

This study employed conventional and reverse mentoring to form the theoretical basis for bidirectional mentoring. Using the analytic hierarchy process, the relative weights of bidirectional mentoring functions were measured and analyzed. A focus group method was employed to plan a structured on-the-job training course framework for bidirectional…

School systems around the world are adopting more intellectually ambitious academic content in the hopes of improving their educational productivity. In the United States, these efforts have required significant changes to teachers' instructional practices, and increased attention to teachers' formal and on-the-job professional learning…

Various studies conducted into mainstreaming implementations in preschool and primary school but implementations in light of data are rare in the secondary schools. To provide valuable insights to this gap in the literature, the present study was conducted to identify the requirements in resource room implementations in a secondary school and…

Background: Professional standards for validity of achievement tests have long reflected a consensus that validity is the degree to which evidence and theory support interpretations of test scores entailed by the intended uses of tests. Yet there are convincing lines of evidence that the standards are not adequately followed in practice, that…

Alternative certification programs for primary and secondary school teachers face a difficult challenge: they must develop highly qualified and high quality teachers while adapting to the unique on-the-job training needs of their participants. Research literature indicates that many programs suffer from a lack of cohesion between coursework and…