We describe how a modified version of an emergency survival strategy led our team in addressing problems of practice identified in two second grade classrooms. We attended to the urgent needs of students by enacting the curriculum with integrity, doing what was most important and effective, while accommodating their classroom context (LeMahieu,…

Teacher design teams (TDTs) are professional learning communities in which teachers collaborate to (re)design innovative educational materials. When appropriately supported, TDT work stimulates the explication and use of pedagogical content knowledge, thus providing important opportunities for teachers to learn from one another. However, TDT…

The mission of the Palau Ministry of Education is to ensure that their students will be successful in Palauan society and the world. Schools are the heart of Palau's communities, reflecting the rich culture of the nation. They incorporate a unique blend of traditional values and modern methodologies to support learning for the diverse and…

Most teachers in public schools (67.3%) will have at least one multilingual learner in their class, yet many have no preparation for supporting these students (NCES, 2022; Johnson & Wells, 2017). Recognizing this gap, school district administrators have called for more professional learning about instructional strategies for students who are…

The daily contingent and ambiguous praxis of teaching raises various issues that are related to the multidimensional question of the purpose: what to do and how to act with a view to what is considered to be educationally desirable? Despite the revival of interest for practical wisdom as quality of teachers to judge what is to be done, literature…

Since Shulman (1986b) argued that pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) should be a significant indicator of teacher knowledge for quality teaching, PCK has received enormous attention from researchers in the teacher education field. Nevertheless, little empirical and theoretical attention has been given to English as a Foreign Language (EFL)…

As the global pandemic and acts of racial violence continue to impact employees and students across the United States, five members of a university arts-based research group called the Creativity Collaborative came together to support each other. The Creativity Collaborative's guiding principles of Critical Media Literacy, construction of…

Patricia Carini's philosophy and ways of seeing and doing were born at a small, independent school in rural Vermont, but the reach of her ideas extended to teachers working in a variety of different settings. This article documents the impact of Carini's work on the practices of the staff at The Cedar School (pseudonym) a small, progressive,…

Over the last two decades, researchers have portrayed quality professional development for mathematics teachers as collaborative and situated in teachers' instructional realities. However, empirical findings also point out various impediments to transforming teacher conversations into consequential learning. These findings illuminate the need to…

Assessment is at the core of high-quality education. When educators purposefully engage in assessment, the learning experiences and outcomes of all students, especially of students diagnosed with specific learning disabilities (SLDs), are improved. In this chapter, we discuss assessment as unfolding within a framework that includes purposes,…

Social Media is a part of life these days, a majority of students use social media as a way to interact with each other, get information and keep up with current events. As teachers we can embrace this and help guide our students on how to use social media as digital citizens properly. This is how two professionals use twitter to engage themselves…

Utilizing the Understanding by Design (UbD) framework, a lead philosophy instructor and an instructional designer collaborated with seven other faculty members to create "Great Ideas in Philosophy" for online asynchronous delivery. We presented a broad array of topics in philosophy and provided substantial practices in "doing"…

While the demands of teaching continue to escalate, teacher development has changed relatively little over time, leaving many of today's teachers feeling underprepared, overwhelmed, or demoralized with few opportunities to make real change. Teacher leadership holds promise for both addressing challenges within schools and empowering teachers.…

This chapter describes the conceptualization and interactions of the Portfolio Group, a knowledge community of teachers and teacher educators with over a twenty-year history of collaboration. Formed in 1998, its story formed the model for the concept of the Faculty Academy. An overview of the Portfolio Group's members and collaborative activities…

This book is part memoir and part history, sharing the story of what is possible when like-minded educators work together to address radical change. The narrative, written by one who lived it, shares the journey of the district, the experts who helped guide them and the practical applications that are in place to support the concept of…