Bridging the real and ideal: A comparison between learning community characteristics and a school-based case study

Cultivating a teacher community of practice for sustainable professional development: beyond planned efforts

“…As Day and Gu (2007) have learned, in ensuring teachers' professional learning and development, it is critical to sustain their commitment and support their practice transformation over their entire career. For this case study, we claim no significance about its theoretical implications and no generalizability of the lessons learned, yet, the unique experience of this group of 18 ESL teachers given the facilitation of the two teacher educators can provide some practical guideposts in nurturing teacher communities for professional development in future attempts by taking into account the support from colleagues, school administration, parents, and the wider educational community so as to bridge the real and the ideal (Clausen, Aquino, & Widerman, 2009). …”

The Bricks and Mortar of our Foundation for Faculty Development: Book-study within a self-study professional learning community

“…In presenting our findings we first demonstrate how the text, Developing a Pedagogy of Teacher Education: Understanding Teaching and Learning about Teaching (Loughran, 2006), provided the building blocks for exploring the tensions of teacher education (Berry, 2007). We continue by illustrating how exemplifying the characteristics of effective professional learning communities (Clausen, Aquino, & Wideman, 2009) provided the mortar of group processes that supported collegial discourse about these and other issues.…”

“…As experienced educators, we were aware that professional learning communities could enhance teachers' understandings of the issues that characterize their practices, foster collaboration, and promote critical inquiry (Clausen et al, 2009;Cochran-Smith & 88 A.L. Grierson et al Lytle, 1999;Dufour & Eaker, 1998;Fullan, Hill, & Crevola, 2006).…”

“…Although there was evidence that professional learning communities could transform teacher practitioners' knowledge (Clausen et al, 2009;Dufour & Eaker, 1998;Fullan et al, 2006), there was little research investigating faculty development within these structures. Moreover, understandings of how teacher educators develop and enact their pedagogy of education were limited (Cochran-Smith, 2003;Loughran, 2006;Russell & Loughran, 2007;Zeichner, 2005).…”

Honoursdidactiek in een leergang voor honoursdocenten

“…Onderzoek heeft aangetoond dat samenwerkend leren in een team of groep ook voor professionele ontwikkeling een succesfactor is, evenals het gebruik van reflectie over het eigen handelen ( reflection on action) (Clausen, Aquino, & Wideman, 2009). De programmaleiders van de leergang honours teaching passen die toe in de besprekingen van de interventies die deelnemers in hun onderwijspraktijk uitvoeren.…”