Two related case studies of secondary mathematics teachers examine the roles and conditions helpful in initiating, directing, and/or supporting teachers' own professional development. Using multiple data sources from school-based and professional settings, we applied analytic induction to identify patterns of similarities and differences in…

This article looks at the role that teacher training can play in implementing curriculum reform, specifically in studies conducted in French-speaking Africa by researchers at the UNESCO Chair in Curriculum Development. After reviewing the effects that reform has on the school as an organization, it establishes a link between the concept of change…

This paper describes the need for developing, implementing and sustaining professional development (PD) designed to provide a network of coaching support for teachers, an element of independent online study and a collaborative network of peers. Leaders recognize the importance of school structure but need to further address the impact of…

This paper examines how teachers and administrators who were involved in a multi-year effort to engage in distributed leadership interpreted their experiences. We lay out and apply an argument for using an interpretive perspective to study distributed leadership. Collective sensemaking around distributed leadership is illustrated by an in-depth…

This qualitative research study examined the experiences of five teacher leaders enrolled in an instructional leadership master's degree cohort who engaged in equity-focused action research. Specifically, the study focused on: "How do teacher leaders describe their development as equity-centered leaders after engaging in action…

This article describes an initiative designed to improve the content-area literacy skills of all students at a Massachusetts high school and to demonstrate the important role teacher leaders play in bridging the various elements of school improvement efforts. Meeting students' language and literacy needs within content-area classrooms is becoming…

In this article, the authors use an explanatory narrative of participation and transformation across two consecutive early childhood communities of practice to chronicle the evolution of a teacher leader, Michelle. This narrative illustrates how the continuity of experience spawned her development from apprentice toward an agentic teacher leader,…

If veteran teachers made a list of resolutions for what they'd do next school year to better support new teachers in their schools, what actions and approaches should top those lists? The question has high stakes because half of all new teachers leave the profession within the first five years. Researchers have identified "support from the…

In this paper we show how practices of professional learning and practices of leading can be understood as related in ecologies of practices. We will present findings from an international empirical research project that directs us to the connectivity between professional learning and leading practices that emerged as "adventitious",…

The improvement of mathematics teaching and learning is a complicated undertaking. It relies on teacher understanding of math curriculum in addition to awareness of how children acquire mathematics concepts. It also depends on teachers' abilities to translate these understandings into learning tasks and instructional routines, as well as the…

The purpose of this study was to describe the transformation of one small, rural school district's professional development program. The study focused on the actions that school leaders took to replace a traditional, workshop-based program that was deemed ineffective with a new professional development model. The new model was designed to create…

This study focuses on using wikis as a learning environment, as part of a professional development program for chemistry teacher leaders. The study was performed in Israel and involved 20 chemistry teachers. One goal was to investigate how using wiki may promote effective science teacher professional development. Various aspects of the teachers'…

This ethnographic study investigated teacher leadership and professional learning in a secondary mathematics department. Qualitative data were collected through in-depth face-to-face interviews, observations, and document analysis. It is the social aspect of the school environment and specifically, the subject department, which presents an…

This qualitative, practitioner research study, conducted by a school leader-as-researcher, was designed to gain insight into instructional leadership and teacher learning through the perceptions of high school teachers participating in a voluntary, school-based, self-organized, self-directed, cross-curricular teacher learning group within a…

This paper describes a process in which early childhood professionals, who were novice researchers, engaged in their own research projects in collaboration with academics through a practitioner inquiry group. The aim of the project was to introduce the concepts and practices of practitioner enquiry, and learn about, plan and implement a…