In this collaborative, multi-voice paper we tell the story of our design collaboration. By describing the process of one design team of teacher educators, we offer a template of what it means to center teachers' lives and experiences as we design professional development with and for them.

This paper analyses the nature of collaborative teacher learning as a form of 'public sphere', under current policy conditions. The research draws upon Habermas' notions of communicative action and public spheres, and literature on the nature of teachers' learning in the context of standardized curriculum and assessment reform, to analyse how…

A popular trend fusing regular and special education, co-teaching aims to combine the content expertise of a general education teacher with a special education teacher's understanding of meeting the needs of a range of learners for the good of all students. Co-teaching also serves as a vehicle for actualizing characteristics of successful schools…

In this study, the authors sought to uncover the characteristics of professional development (PD) that were identified by teacher-participants as being important to their implementation of project ideas. Using phenomenological interviewing, the authors talked with nine teacher-participants about changes to their teaching practices after they…

In English primary schools, provision of musical music lessons is often lacking. This paper focuses on whether a lack of clarity around primary music pedagogy might be a contributing factor. Some comparisons are drawn with the realm of second-language teaching. A small qualitative study is reported in which three teacher-educators with…

The value of preparing students for college, careers, and civic life is a shared outcome of social studies and language arts teachers. This study explores how developing content and civic literacy to these ends can be fortified through language arts and social studies teacher collaboration in source-based planning and teaching. Although numerous…

Elementary educators at the urban elementary school in this study struggled with technology-enhanced literacy pedagogy to increase student success. The purpose of this case study was to examine the extent to which educators built relationships between technology and teaching to improve student success. The study was guided by Venkatesh's unified…

With the recent mandates involving students with disabilities, there has been ongoing debate regarding the effectiveness of inclusive programs in today's public schools. Recent research has demonstrated that teacher collaboration is an essential component to the success of inclusive education programs (Hernandez, 2013). There is an abundance of…

This paper documents the first year of a qualitative case study investigating the experiences of reciprocal learning teams of teachers within a small, rural secondary school. The purpose of this study was to examine how teachers experienced collaborative professional development (PD) and how their experiences contributed to developing the culture…

The information from this research study addresses the needs of teachers attempting to understand their role and successful elementary teachers' motivational instructional strategies they can use for urban elementary students. Basic qualitative methodology was chosen for this study because it allowed the study to have participants who had…

By interviewing 12 first-year teachers twice over the course of their first year, the researcher conducted this phenomenological study to analyze the effects of supports provided to new teachers and if those supports created a greater feeling of self-efficacy or increased the likelihood that the new teachers would continue teaching. The researcher…

Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) are a best practice that has been around for decades; however, due to organizational structuring in elementary schools, teachers are allowed 30 minutes of planning time. During this time little planning or collaboration with peers is achieved. Previous research has proven that professional learning by way…

The global educational landscape continues to change in response to three forces: a new paradigm of curriculum approaches that has shifted from teaching to learning; public demand for evidence of this learning; and decentralization of public schools (Sahlberg in "Journal of Educational Change," 12(2):173-185, 2011). These changes have…

For a majority of teachers, traditional professional development workshops lack relevancy and leave teachers on their own to implement what was learned. Workshops are frequently structured in ways in which teachers are seen simply as recipients of information handed down by trainers (a more passive role) versus those who reflect on and construct…

Faculty mentoring in higher education aims to scaffold mentee to adjust to the new work setting, build social relations with others, and improve instructional skills in the same physical environment. However, this process could be problematic in institutions serving in satellite campuses with geographically spread faculty body. The purpose of the…