Hundreds of community colleges exist in rural contexts across the United States, yet we know little about the work and career development of the thousands of faculty employed at such institutions. Through a review of current literature, this article demonstrates how faculty at rural community colleges encounter specific factors in their…

When designing a study, the sampling method for selecting research participants is an important decision with a host of considerations. When designing a professional development (PD) program with a limited number of spaces, the method of choosing participants from the applicants is also important. When research and professional development are…

In this "Distance Learning" Special Issue, Errol Craig Sull introduces the "Try This" series of articles to assist with Becoming a Better Distance Learning Instructor. Sull notes, as each new year taps distance learning instructors on the shoulders they look to improve, to be the best they can be as distance educators. There…

Educators create lesson plans in order to guide instruction. This researcher will research and discuss how culturally responsive educators are influenced by mentoring and professional development. In order to understand how mentoring and professional development influence these lesson plans we must understand mentoring and professional…

During the summer of 2020, in response to the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers, many people in the United States mobilized to address systems of oppression that function through power dynamics around race and its intersections with factors like class and gender. This article is a call for art educators to take this moment to…

The professional learning team at Learning Without Tears leads the design, development, facilitation, impact assessment, and progressive improvement of professional learning for thousands of educators, therapists, and other practitioners who use Learning Without Tears integrated solutions to build children's foundational early literacy skills. The…

This paper considers the process of "professional becoming" for an academic developer as a complex transition towards epistemological plurality. This is a necessary step to appreciate and support the lived experiences of teachers across the spectrum of academic disciplines. Viewed through an ecological lens, the complexity of the…

Reflection is a continuous process that is an essential part of an educator's work and their commitment to being a lifelong learner, actively working to improve professional practice (Division of Early Childhood [DEC], 2022). Reflective practice allows practitioners to continue to refine their knowledge and skills to become more effective in their…

Purpose: The professional development (PD) of teachers is vital to student learning, yet PD continues to be plagued by positivist assumptions and low teacher buy-in. Because PD is based on persuasion, and because the roles of PD providers and receivers are not as discrete as they appear, rhetorical theory offers a valuable framework for…

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been part of every citizen's life for several years. Still, the emergence of generative AI (GenAI), accessible to all, has raised discussions about the ethical issues they raise, particularly in education. GenAI tools generate content according to user requests, but are students using these tools ethically and…

This applied research study aimed to improve teacher professional development to improve teacher's instructional practice. The need to improve teacher professional development arose from ineffective instructional practices and low academic achievement ratings. This applied research study incorporated an action plan with three elements to improve…

Curriculum-based professional learning is situated within the broader professional learning ecosystem. It focuses on how to teach a specific subject for specific grades, using the specific materials that teachers will use with their students. Given the potential of curriculum-based professional learning to support teachers and strengthen…

Teaching is a complex endeavor, and the pandemic era stretched teachers to their limit, leaving them in need of supports that ignite both their passion and capacity. The typical top-down mandates found in many schools need to be replaced with processes that meet teachers where they are, helping them grow so their students can grow, too. Ann…

At Villanova University, with approximately 11,000 students enrolled across six colleges and a law school, generating ways to engage faculty in assessment professional development can be challenging, particularly for an institution with a decentralized assessment system. During faculty interactions, it is often heard that faculty dislike attending…

In this "Distance Learning" Special Issue, Errol Craig Sull introduces the "Try This" series of articles to assist with Becoming a Better Distance Learning Instructor. Sull notes, the basics of how to be a solid distance educator are well known: constant presence in the classroom, quick turnaround of student e-mails and…