Professional learning communities are receiving increasing attention within the schooling sector but empirical research into their development and use within early childhood education contexts is rare. This paper reports initial findings of an exploratory study into the development of professional learning communities in New Zealand's early…

This case study focuses on 11 individual teachers who participate in three distinct professional learning communities (PLCs) within one school. A PLC is "a group of people who take an active, reflective, collaborative, learning-orientated, and growth promoting approach toward the mysteries, problems, and perplexities of teaching and…

Professional development of in-service teachers requires a sustainable and school-based model which will provide them with opportunities for collaboration in building an environment that supports their capacity-building and pedagogical improvement. In this professional development model, teachers are treated as central to the learning process,…

In schools the participation of students, parents and paraprofessionals is important because it increases ownership and improves performance. Here the focus is on students' and paraprofessionals' learning and a sense of community when leaders try to develop a professional learning community in a new school in Iceland. An action research project…

This article examines the in-house professional development program in a private school in Lebanon and the approach it adopts to train teachers on reflective practice. It identifies the contextual factors in the school that teachers perceive as supporting their professional learning of reflective practice, and investigates the teachers'…