Wales provides an interesting case study of the ways in which policies relating to continuing professional development (CPD) change over time. During the past three decades there has been a swing from central political influences on CPD policy to a focus on school priorities coupled with greater individual professional focus, then back again to…

Professional development is defined as the main route to quality teaching, which in turn leads to improved learning for all students. Because the real challenges of professional development become apparent only after the implementation process has begun, the present paper focuses on integrating professional development experiences with classroom…

A critical friend is a friend who offers critique on practice. Critical Friendship Circles (CFCs) are groups of critical friends who meet for feedback using a protocol. A study with 95 participants at an American university in Egypt has revealed challenges specific to the culture of most "Teaching English as a Foreign Language" student-teachers. A…

The design and early implementation of a major national design initiative in England, the Masters in Teaching and Learning (MTL), is described in this paper. This novel hybrid master's degree seeks to span the traditional academic-practitioner divide, reconstitute the theory-practice dynamic as reciprocal and co-construct an authentic signature…

In-service training in public child welfare agencies in the United States has long been viewed as an important vehicle for the improvement of job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and therefore as important to retention in child welfare. This article examines the critical role of transfer of learning strategies in such training and…

In this article we portray our personal journeys in a cross-cultural context resulting in professional growth. Data are presented in the form of constructed dialogues, and are reflected upon using the theories of transformative learning and intercultural competency. The role of lesson study as a vehicle for our journeys is examined. Reflection on…

The focus of this paper is on detailing the decisions made when we created, implemented and studied a mathematics professional development (PD) program in low-performing, urban schools. Our program held many characteristics espoused by researchers as critical for effectiveness. We begin by reviewing the characteristics of quality PD programs that…

This paper explores the impact of the increasingly performative nature of the assessment of teachers' performance in England leading to the introduction of "Professional Standards for Teachers" in 2007. It reports the findings of a small-scale study of newly-qualified primary school teachers in the context of literature on teacher identity,…

This study describes the effect of embedding content in the Communication in Inquiry Science Project professional development model for science and language arts teachers. The model uses four components of successful professional development (content focus, active learning, extended duration, participation by teams of teachers from the same school…

As the professional learning community (PLC) as a desired cultural norm gains popularity within K-12 state schools, greater knowledge of the PLC implementation process is warranted. This study reports findings from semi-structured focus group interviews with teachers in an urban/suburban high school after one year of schoolwide professional…

As a new teacher educator of beginner teachers on the Graduate Teacher Programme in a large School of Education in a UK university, I have reflected on how I have been able to develop the effectiveness of modelling good professional practice to student-teachers. In this paper I will present ways in which I have made modelling more explicit, how…

This study examines professional development activities provided for mathematics and science teachers in the National Science Foundation's Math and Science Partnership Program by analyzing a cross-sectional sample of over 2000 professional development (PD) activities in the program. Data were gathered from secondary source documents and surveys to…

This research study used in-depth interviews to examine a professional development book club of teacher educators exploring their beliefs about language diversity and how to prepare future teachers for culturally and linguistically diverse schools. Findings include the centrality of lived experiences, conflicting ideas of high-quality pedagogy and…

This article reports on a qualitative study that explored the experiences of eight Hong Kong teachers of academic subjects who undertook a full-time, short-term professional development course (PDC) designed to provide them with specialized knowledge and classroom skills required to teach content subjects through the English medium. Using a…

Online professional development (OPD) is proliferating in an effort to eliminate barriers to high-quality in-service teacher training. Using the Internet as a vehicle for continuing professional development, however, introduces new concerns largely absent in its face-to-face counterpart. For example, evidence from the USA's e-Learning for…