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Japanese Lesson Study (JLS) is a professional development method, involving teachers collaboratively planning lessons, observing their enactment, then discussing observations of teaching and learning. This paper explores translation of JLS internationally, seeking to understand how and why it is adapted and how an understanding of national culture and implementation paradigms might support translation. We begin by examining evidence on adaptation and challenges of JLS implementation internationally, finding both deviation from the seven components of JLS, and qualitative evidence of perceived challenges to successful implementation. Further we explore two bodies of the literature explaining how and why such adaptations occur. First, implementation science reveals that full fidelity appears not to be amenable to the complexity of education innovations like LS, but that adaptation is fraught with challenges, with no linear pathway. Secondly, Hofstede's and colleagues' dimensions of culture enable us to hypothesise about how Japan's culture might have framed development of JLS, and to predict possible challenges when translated into a host nation. Finally, we hypothesize as to the relationship between adoption of either fidelity or adaptation implementation paradigms, and identified differences between Japan and the host nation's national culture, suggesting avenues for further research which may serve to test hypotheses empirically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of teacher educators in schools and universities in England and the changes that have arisen within the field of initial teacher training (ITT) as a result of the Coalition Government’s (2010–2015) School Direct initiative. The discussion which follows and the conclusions suggested are live, current and of pivotal interest to all universities with ITT programmes, as well as all schools involved in the delivery of ITT, and to all parties with a policy interest in the supply of effective teacher education. After setting the context, the discussion starts with a critical examination of ITT policy in England over the course of the last 20 years. We then consider troubling binaries inherent in teacher education and go on to explore insights from research: the importance of beliefs; the problem of enactment; and the theory/practice divide. These insights are then used to craft the enabling constraints for third-space activity designed to set in motion a hybridisation process from which a new breed of teacher educator could emerge. We suggest that university and school colleagues working together in collaborative partnership can provide a principled pedagogical path through a changing landscape of education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Collaborative inquiry (CI) has emerged as a dominant structure for educator professional learning in the twenty-first century. CI engages educators in collaboratively investigating focused aspects of their professional practice by exploring student responses to instruction, leading to new understandings and changes in classroom teaching. However, despite the increased presence of CI, research on CI frameworks has yet to be consolidated and synthesized. The purpose of this systematic, scoping review was to examine literature on the structure, challenges, and benefits of CI as a professional learning structure for educators (i.e. teachers, principals, school district leaders). In total, 42 sources were identified and analysed in relation to characteristics of CI, supports and resources for CI, empirically supported benefits of CI, and enactment challenges. The review found that the majority of texts and research in this field are highly practical, describing CI steps or case-study examples. Accordingly, the current literature reviewed in this paper largely serves ahow tofunction for engaging in CI projects with empirical data collected from primarily case-study work. The literature also provides preliminary theoretical articulations for CI as a professional learning structure for educators. The paper concludes with identified areas for future CI research related to: clarifying the focus of CI initiatives, articulating what ‘inquiry’ means in CI, and sustaining CI within the profession of teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article presents findings from a multi-year study of a grant-funded professional development fellowship program that supports teachers in becoming science teacher leaders and improving science curriculum and instruction. The program's activities are designed to: (1) create and support a corps of teacher leaders, (2) institute a culture reflective instruction, and (3) improve teacher quality through vertical articulation of curriculum and professional development. This paper shares the experiences of fellows in our third cohort during their first year in the program and focuses on their collaboration in a vertical group. Three significant themes emerged in the data: tendency to participate in a pseudo community (engaging in superficial conversation); focus on emerging problems of practice; and finally, interactions that encourage pulling back the curtain and reflecting on the details of practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on teachers' professional learning and development (PLD) has investigated the nature and design of such learning initiatives, itemising characteristics that promote high-quality PLD and outcomes for individual teachers. However, much learning for teachers happens as they work together to consider and discuss their ability to implement their new learning. Features that create teacher collaboration have not been as explicitly pinpointed within the existing literature. We report a content analysis of literature aimed at identifying and grouping features of what we term 'teachers' collaborative learning' (TCL), specifically for early childhood teachers. Three interdependent themes that promote collaboration were identified. First, structural features reflect how effective TCL is organised. Second, motivational features promote the depth and quality of teachers' learning experience. The third set of features are those that promote sustainability of both changes and improvements in teaching and learning arising from TCL. We argue that an understanding of effective TCL for early childhood teachers is enhanced when many of these features function together cohesively. We conclude with evidence-based considerations for designing PLD. We highlight the need to address power differences in PLD, respond to cultural issues affecting knowledge building, and understand challenges faced in teachers sustaining collaborative learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an account of a school-centred research and development project aimed at improving teacher and pupil understanding of talk as a tool for learning. The paper establishes the basis for a dialogic pedagogy and reflects on strategies for creating an effective classroom climate that promotes productive and purposeful talk. It goes on to explain how a collaborative approach, founded on the use of classroom-based research for professional development, was developed to encourage discussion and dissemination of practice amongst teachers across subject departments. In the classroom-based research a pragmatic approach was adopted, involving mixed-method data collection and analysis; this included video analysis of lessons, interviews and research logs to encourage reflective practice amongst teachers. This project suggests that the approach was highly successful in developing a staff as a community of learners and suggests that an approach which involves the collaborative analysis of classroom practice can lead to significant whole-school developments. The case is made for promoting a whole-school focus on the use of talk for learning and proposals for further developments are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the development and outcomes of the second phase of OER4Schools, a school-based professional development programme supporting interactive forms of subject teaching in conjunction with Open Educational Resources (OER) and technology in Zambian primary schools. We worked with partners to identify the needs of school-based continuing professional development adapted to the local context; the programme was based on participatory, collaborative and inquiry-based pedagogies for both classroom learning and teacher development. We worked over a one-year period with four experienced teachers in two basic (primary) schools serving disadvantaged communities. Data were collected from observations, interviews, surveys, lesson planning/review meetings and team workshops. All participants integrated OER and technology into mathematics and science lessons and developed more interactive practices, including collaborative learning. Professional dialogue, quality conversations, reflective practice, cultural sensitivity, peer learning and cooperation were pivotal mechanisms through which teachers shifted their focus from teaching (and teacher exposition) to student learning. Seeing students as capable individuals, teachers raised their expectations and developed insight into interactive practices such as group work, providing meaningful opportunities for student collaboration and active learning by all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional, top-down professional development (PD) can render teachers mere implementers of the ideas of others, but there is some hope that the participatory nature of social media such as Twitter might support more grassroots PD. To better understand Twitter’s role in education, we conducted a survey of K–16 educators regarding their use of the microblogging service for professional purposes. Respondents described multifaceted and intense use, with PD activities more common than use with students and families. This paper delves into qualitative data from 494 respondents who described their perspectives on Twitter PD. Educators praised the platform as efficient, accessible and interactive. Twitter was credited with providing opportunities to access novel ideas and stay abreast of education advances and trends, particularly regarding educational technology. Numerous respondents compared Twitter favorably with other PD available to them. Members of our sample also appreciated how Twitter connected them to educators beyond their own schools and districts, with mention of exposure to both like-minded and diverse perspectives. Respondents described positive and collaborative professional activity facilitated by Twitter, and many noted how it helped them combat various forms of isolation. We conclude by discussing implications of the survey results for educators, researchers and policy-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this paper is to use collaborative self-study to analyze and describe our experiences of teaching about teaching in a digital, online environment. Data were gathered from reflective journal entries, emails and monthly Skype calls. Our findings indicate that the perceived disembodiment of teaching and learning online affected how we fostered relationships with students and responded to problems of practice. Further, we felt that a particular approach to teaching online risked teaching becoming reduced to providing feedback to students in the form of assessment, which had implications for our identities as teacher educators. By discussing our experiences of teaching online we began to develop a critical understanding of the challenges of teaching online, and questioned how our online practices shaped our developing pedagogies of teacher education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Over the past 20 years, teacher professional learning as been reconceptualised as a process that is initiated during pre-service preparation but which continues in the form of job-embedded and collaborative learning activities. Researchers ave mapped the range of professional learning activities employed in selected Western and Asian societies. The current case study used a variety of qualitative data sources including open-ended interviews with the principal and teachers, observations of meetings and documents analysis, to identify model practices used to foster teacher learning in one primary school in a central province of Vietnam. The research identified nine professional learning activities for teachers, comprised of both external and school-based activities. These activities are described in detail and also linked to features of the Vietnamese social, political and cultural context under the lens of phenomenological analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the outcomes of a ‘lesson study’ project conducted in a mathematics department with four serving teachers in a secondary school in England. Using Dudley’s lesson study framework and drawing on Hargreaves and Fullan’s notion of professional capital, the feasibility and value of collaborative lesson study as a vehicle for the development of teacher learning were explored. Planning and evaluation meetings as well as end-of-project interviews were analysed to investigate how teachers planned research lessons together and how these were evaluated. Despite time constraints, teachers who engaged in lesson study reported that the process improved understanding of their students; that collaboration helped them to develop less-teacher-centred approaches and created a stronger sense of teacher community. The project demonstrated that lesson study has potential as an alternative or complementary model of teachers’ learning, but it also throws up substantive organisational challenges if its use is to expand. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper details how a seven-month reading-focused, professional development initiative centered on the assessment-to-instruction cycle supported teachers’ growth by building capacity for change through collaborative, small-group sessions, while concurrently providing differentiated professional learning through individualized classroom-based coaching. Analysis of participants’ experiences revealed the importance of differentiated learning opportunities in supporting teachers’ abilities to modify their instructional practices in response to their students’ identified needs. Requisite to supporting teachers’ needs and interests was differentiating the content, process, and expected outcomes of the professional development initiative. Implications include the use of students’ assessment results as a catalyst for teacher change, collaborative small-group sessions for the construction of new knowledge, and proximal goal-setting and individualized coaching to provide the differentiated professional development experiences that teachers may require to implement classroom-based instructional changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will map the process of collaborative professional enquiry in an attempt to make sense of the structural elements evident in creating a 'Community of Collaborative Professional Enquiry' (CCPE). At the heart of each CCPE examined was a collaborative, improvement-focused intervention that was designed and implemented by Scottish teachers engaged in professional updating in pursuit of Chartered Teacher status. It is hoped that, in articulating precisely what these teachers attempted to do, this will support our understanding of collaborative professional enquiry as a process. In particular, the paper will examine how collaborative professional enquiry supported teachers' praxis by movement from the identification of practice-based 'problems' to the professional construction of new knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the past decades, the profession of school leader has become more complex. To deal with these increasing complexities and the challenges school leaders encounter, it is important that school leaders are provided with effective professional development. However, research on school leaders' learning and professional development, and especially on school leaders' group reflective learning, is still rather limited. Based on findings of a few previous studies considering school leaders' professional development, a group reflective learning programme was developed. The current qualitative study unravels school leaders' reactions with regard to group reflective learning programmes through interviewing the 19 participants of the programme. The study of the school leaders' reactions shows that school leaders set particular preconditions for group reflective learning, that they value recognition and support of fellow school leaders, and that they appreciate the programme because they were able to learn from their own, and their fellow school leaders' daily-life experiences. Group reflective programmes have the potential to develop knowledge, skills and/or attitudes and seem to satisfy the statement that school leaders need to be provided with appropriate professional development programmes to prevent job related psychological issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines collaboration between teachers in the 'more teachers than classes' (PMQC) French scheme implemented from 2013 in primary schools receiving a high number of pupils with learning difficulties. Based on concepts of teacher professional learning, teachers' shared-work and the learning community, the research aims to highlight the continuing professional development (CPD) the teachers can set up within this scheme which constrains them to collaborate. In an ethnographic survey, the study focuses on three supernumerary teachers (ST) in three similar schools. From the collection of their time schedule, interviews about their experiences over two years in this ST's function and the opinions of teachers in charge of classes in each school about the mandated collaborative work, the findings reveal three modes of work sharing. The analysis of these modes of work help to deepen the multi-causal processes of CPD that, in the PMQC scheme, are contrasted between teacher communities in schools. Finally, the discussion focuses on the relationship between STs' experiences and CPD and then on the possible adaptations to be made to the scheme for practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A starting point for realising connections between leadership and professional learning is to focus specifically on teachers and their conceptions of leadership. Typically, leadership is understood as a designated position with a defined role and responsibilities for individuals. An alternative conception is to view leadership as collective rather than individual work to enhance student learning. This article advances leadership for professional learning through explicit recognition and application of actions underpinning four professional values (professional discretion, collegial obligation, reflective inquiry and discourse and evidence-based practice). These values are intrinsic to collaborative learning cultures. The literature supporting them points to important actions for the creation and maintenance of these cultures. The article explores this literature and justifies particular teacher leadership actions that help collaborative learning cultures. These actions are captured in a sample survey instrument designed to stimulate in-school discussions on productive ways to work towards teacher leadership in cooperative settings. Sample data are analysed to indicate how teachers' individual views produce a school profile, which can be used as a prompt to determine whether the basis for reciprocal professional learning by teachers is evident or requires further development. The survey tool makes explicit the foundations for teacher leadership as collective activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a discourse analysis of the qualitative data collected in an ethnographic approach, this study investigates learning emerging in an English teachers' professional learning community (PLC) at a Chinese secondary school in Shanghai. It explores the discourse features of situated interactions in two types of typical events occurring regularly in this PLC, participant roles in the interactions, and how learning occurs in the community. This study reveals that different foci and functions of the meetings largely determined the discourse features, and that community members tended to take different roles and demonstrate different aspects of their identity. Despite the differences, the two meetings both had a high percentage of episodes of pedagogical reasoning(EPRs) and low rate of distributed participation per episode. It is implied that both meetings were conducive to teacher learning, but the learning foci (topics covered in the two meetings) were different. More distributed participation may be needed to encourage collaborative learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a case study, we explore how four Grade 9–10 biology teachers in Singapore experienced their collaborative approach to curriculum and addressed challenges associated with newly prescribed science curricula, such as the perceived lack of clarity and pressure to complete teaching curricular content. With the teachers participating in a variation theory-framed learning study as part of their professional development, we employed a thematic analysis of the data corpus, focusing on teacher interviews and reflective journals to elucidate the teachers’ experiences of approaching curriculum. Themes constructed included teachers drawing on prescribed curriculum as an ‘enabling constraint’ to promote increasing clarity, developing greater coherence in curriculum interpretation, integrating variation theory, and drawing on different resources to enhance their approach to curriculum. We further reflected on these findings to reveal notions of teacher empowerment and to urge for teachers’ more powerful ways of approaching curriculum, as we cautioned against the potential danger of the rhetoric of teachers moving away from technical implementation of curriculum. We also emphasized closing the gap between prescribed curriculum carefully conceptualized by the central authority and its subsequent implementation by teachers, in order to avoid ‘wasting’ the deliberation efforts of the central authority when teachers implement curriculum unreflectively. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]