The author, who teaches in a Norfolk comprehensive school, presents an account of her involvement with the new research practice of lesson study, and discusses its benefits as part of a continuing professional development programme designed to encourage teachers to become more reflective.

This paper explores the integration of Open Educational Practices (OEP) into an institutional strategy to develop distinctive excellence in teaching, learning and scholarship. The institution in the case study is a public polytechnic university serving a metropolitan area in Canada. If emerging Open Educational Practices are to flourish at our…

Support, or lack thereof, is often cited as the main reason for teachers to leave the profession early on (Ingersoll, 2003). Feiman-Nemser (2001) identifies five Central Tasks associated with Learning to Teach (CTLT) that could focus the support novice teachers need during their induction years: learning the teaching context (TC), designing…

The paper reports on a study undertaken in Nairobi, Kenya with school leaders. We examined their perceptions of the adequacy of their preparation experiences and what aspects remained problematic. This paper only reports on the survey findings which included rating-type and open-ended responses. Principals conceptualized their…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of microteaching on pre-service teachers' critical thinking dispositions. The participants of the study consisted of 70 pre-service teachers (64.3% females, 35.7% males) in the Turkish language teacher education program at a public university in the north of Turkey. In the study, an experimental…

Numerous districts are implementing Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) as a part of reform efforts to improve student achievement to meet external accountability mandates. Few districts, however, have considered the essential supports and components that teachers working in PLCs require for these teams to result in instructional improvement.…

Reading comprehension skill is an important aspect of language acquisition that has far-reaching implications on the life of any student. Weak comprehension ability invariably affects not only students' performance in English language, but it hinders competence in other critical fields. Reading comprehension skills are not being taught in ways to…

This report is an overview of the Building a Teaching Effectiveness Network (BTEN) project, in which 19 AISD schools participated from 2011 to 2015. The report highlights the positive impact BTEN had on AISD schools and describes challenges with a new way of thinking about improvement. [Abstract modified to meet ERIC guidelines.]

The state of Florida has taken an unprecedented approach to teacher professional development in its Race to the Top (RTTT) Program application by proposing to promote an international innovation that originates in Japan, "lesson study," as a statewide teacher professional development model. Since winning the US$700 million RTTT funding…

Researchers in the present study planned a reflective teacher education course and documented the contribution of such a course to improving teachers' reflectivity. Five English teachers took part in the reflective teacher education course designed by the researchers. To record how the course could help improve reflective teaching, researchers…

The term "reflection" is defined as a contemplation of one's teaching craft with the view to improving it (Edwards & Thomas, 2010). Reflection is supported by a number of theories and is considered a key component of RTLB work. A community of practice (CoP), when used as a space for reflection, provides the potential for multiple…

The advent of faculty development centers that focus on the improvement of teaching skills and better understanding of student learning concepts dates back to the 1960s. These centers were initiated from a realization that the effectiveness of a faculty member resulted from growth and maturity over time and that certain support systems were…

This article aims to review literature on feedback to teachers. Because research has hardly focused on feedback among teachers, the review's scope also includes feedback in classrooms. The review proposes that the effectiveness of feedback and feedback processes depend on the learning theory adhered to. Findings show that regardless of the…

This article presents the authors' response to the comments of their article about extending ideas on improving teaching. The authors continue the conversation about improving teaching by focusing on two points that deserve further consideration: (1) the willingness or motivation of teachers to engage in the work of improving teaching; and (2) the…

Over the last several years, Tennessee has rapidly expanded the use of student growth portfolio models for the purpose of teacher evaluation. Participation, both in the number of districts and teachers, has increased steadily since portfolios were first introduced during the 2011-12 school year, and we expect that participation will continue to…