Teachers' expertise is mostly based on insights acquired in their own practice, and not on academic knowledge. Although many attempts have been made to explain this, it is not clear which conditions foster and which barriers hinder teachers' use of academic knowledge. Therefore, this review study explores barriers and conditions for teachers' academic knowledge utilisation in the literature since 2001. We have developed a comprehensive model to categorise barriers and conditions at four levels: the research knowledge level, the individual teacher level, the schoolorganisational level, and the communication level. Our review study reveals that structural collaboration, such as school-university partnerships and innovative communication networks, is increasingly proposed as a strategy to improve teachers' utilisation of academic knowledge.

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In order to support professional development of their teachers 14 Dutch secondary schools developed and implemented a series of interventions. The concept of School as Professional Learning Community was used to frame these school interventions. Data were collected through project documents, interviews with school principals and project leaders, group interviews with teachers and focus groups with project leaders. Interventions can be grouped into five clusters: 1) Shared school vision on learning; 2) Professional learning opportunities for all staff; 3) Collaborative work and learning; 4) Change of school organisation, and 5) Learning leadership. Interventions aimed at teacher-leaders, team leaders and school principals were relatively rare. Interventions belonging to the clusters Professional learning opportunities and Collaborative work and learning were the ones most frequently mentioned including formal and informal teacher groups working and learning together. In general, we conclude that the more embedded an intervention was in the organisation and culture of a school, the more sustainable it appeared to be.

h i g h l i g h t sApproaches for knowledge co-construction in teacher learning groups: practice-based, research-informed, or research-based. Participation in teacher learning groups changes teachers' teaching and understanding of teaching. Supportive school leadership is suggested as a key factor for knowledge co-construction in teacher learning groups.

Closing the feedback loop: a productive interplay between practice-based research and school development through cross-professional collaboration in secondary education Schenke, W.; van Driel, J.H.; Geijsel, F.P.; Volman, M.L.L. : 10.1080/19415257.2016.1258654 Link to publication Published in: Professional Development in Education DOI General rightsIt is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulationsIf you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. A recurrent discussion in the field of education is how to build linkages between educational research and school practice. Cross-professional collaboration between researchers and school practitioners can contribute to the interplay between practice-based research and school development. The aim of our study is to obtain a better understanding of how a productive interplay between practice-based research and school development is established in the context of 19 research and development (R&D) projects in secondary education. Data from semi-structured interviews with school practitioners and researchers involved in the projects, observations of project meetings and document analysis were used. A productive interplay, in which practice-based research informed school development, was found in two-thirds of the R&D projects. Important conditions in these projects include closing the feedback loop from research to school practice, and making clear agreements on communication and on division of roles and tasks.