In 2010, the University of Toronto's Centre for Teaching Support & Innovation (CTSI) and University of Toronto Libraries (UTL) jointly launched Partnering for Academic Student Success (PASS), a partnership to foster new opportunities for collaboration between academic librarians and those involved in developing excellence in university…

Since 2002 the Initial Teacher Education Program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, has run a series of professional learning partnership projects between university instructors and K-12 educators. The Inquiry Into Practice Series, based on a collaborative inquiry approach, has strengthened the commitment to…

One goal of the Junior/Intermediate Option 2, a preservice and induction program initiated by University of Toronto education faculty and the Learning Consortium, is to explore the formation of peer groups and improve peer relations among beginning teachers. This paper finds base support groups a valuable component for fostering collegiality and…

Examined the consequences for 5 teachers of joining a school/university partnership to inquire into the routines of 13 of their colleagues in the same district. Sought to determine whether studying peers helped teachers conduct inquiries into their own practice and how the teacher-researchers used the findings from the original study to alter…

This paper outlines a study involving the use of portfolios by first-year teachers after their experiences in a 10-month preservice teacher education program in which professional portfolios were implemented. Data were gathered from a questionnaire administered to teacher candidates at the end of their program, as well as from 2 sets of interviews…

The Toronto school district combines professional learning in literacy with learning about change to give staying power to literacy-driven reform. Using literacy as the basis for large-scale reform can be challenging without equipping staff with the skills they need to cope with and implement such broad-scale change. Teach both skills at once and…

University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, in partnership with the North York and Metropolitan Toronto Separate School Districts, began a two-year pilot program in 1995 that incorporates a school-improvement project into beginning teacher preparation. A key aim is preparing preservice teachers to be improvement-minded…