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To be a writer, one must write. Research shows when teachers write and identify as writers, they transfer their writing practice into their classroom, positively impacting their students' writing development. Shifting instructional practices or identities requires educators to self-determine a gap in order to take on transformative learning experiences, such as mentoring, professional development, or modeled learning. Often professional development is chosen by administrators for educators to shift their instructional practice, ignoring a teacher's curriculum-maker role, and best-loved self identity. This narrative inquiry analysis details one teacher-writer in a creative writing professional development residency as she supports educators with a goal to transform educators into teacher-writers. This chapter includes the small step successes and systematic struggles the author faced as she modeled the writer's craft and writer's workshop strategies with her teachers. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the important role teachers have to decide, navigate, and discover their own best-loved self-teaching identity.

This chapter develops a theoretical model of a collaborative inquiry-based group development process with a grounded theory approach. The purpose of this research study is to examine how educators engage in collaborative inquiry-based group development processes that transform their professional identity and pedagogical practices. Qualitative research data comes from the Livingstone Inquiry Group (LIG) in Vancouver, Canada. It is a longitudinal case study of inquiry-based pedagogies (IBPs) in a community of learners. They started in 2007 with members representing K-12 teachers, resource staff, administrators, higher education, and union organizations. The model outlines generative dynamics between social capital and relational learning which support pedagogical paradigm shifts in the group’s collaboration. Implications of this study provide direction for research regarding inquiry-based learning in higher educational institutions as an important forum for sustainable professional development of teachers as life-long learners.

In this chapter, we describe how a rubric-style observation instrument for observing classroom writing instruction was used to focus and optimize collaborative video analysis sessions among teachers and researchers spread across six states. As part of a three-year Institute of Education Sciences (IES) development grant, we used videos of classroom instruction both as data for researchers studying the nature and impact of a specific instructional approach, Strategic and Interactive Writing Instruction (SIWI), and as a vehicle for collaborative teacher professional development – for both teachers and teacher leaders.

By tying video analysis to a shared observation instrument, we were able to target video clip selection for discussion and focus our analysis to support teachers across several states and school settings implementing a new approach to writing instruction. After a brief overview of the project for which videos were used, we describe the tools and protocols developed over time to ensure the efficient and powerful use of collaborative video analysis. We also share our experiences on the nature and outcomes of these collaborative sessions both in terms of teachers’ involvement and changes in practice over time.

We argue that the use of a common rubric to guide video clip selection, discussion, and analysis allowed teachers to strategically engage in “data reduction” – that is, not be overwhelmed by the amount of video data – and to use the videos as catalysts for conversations as well as evidence of what works well for individual students. As researchers, these sessions allowed us to ensure collaborative video analysis sessions were focused, efficient, and growth-oriented as well as sources of data for understanding trends in challenges and trajectories of growth for teachers implementing a new approach to instruction.

This work illustrates how researchers can use video for dual purposes – to conduct literacy investigations and to provide teachers with professional development involving video review and reflection.

Developed and discussed in this chapter is a model for university–school partnerships in the Goodlad tradition, a model referred to as the Professional Development Center (PDC). This model is a unique apprenticeship-based partnership inspired from Goodlad, the Holmes Group, NNER, and others, and, has been sustained for nearly 25 years at a rural midwestern university in the United States. Though different in form from the professional development school model, the PDC functions conceptually similarly in that it seeks to renew and revitalize teaching and teachers, and to do so in a professional learning context predicated on inquiry aiming toward the improvement of practice.

This chapter proceeds by introducing the PDC, discussing its policies and practices, curriculum, competencies, and commitments of those in the program, and concludes by discussing the growth, leadership, and renewal experienced through the program. Inclusive in this chapter are observations from mentors and novices who have gone through the PDC programming.

This chapter describes the development and evaluation of an interdisciplinary group-based inquiry-based learning (IBL) project across two professional degree programmes in Scotland – educational psychology and social work. After outlining the policy and practice contexts for interdisciplinary inquiry-based learning, we articulate how IBL can facilitate professional identity development, mirror key aspects of professional practice such as interprofessional collaboration, and provide deep interdisciplinary learning. It is argued that the process of IBL provides an authentic and complex practice scenario which allows for the articulation and development of professional knowledge, values, identities and roles in collaboration with another professional grouping. The process of IBL development is described and we report on the results of a small-scale qualitative evaluation of the short-term outcomes of the IBL approach to teaching and learning. The IBL activity enhanced students’ appreciation of interdisciplinary collaboration and allowed them to practice relevant skills. The views and reflections of students are reported and reinforce the relevance and efficacy of the approach. The chapter concludes with a series of suggestions and advice for the replication of using IBL as a tool to enhance and facilitate interdisciplinary learning.

In an environment of constrained resources and related quality assurance efforts, a growing number of American institutions are tapping collaborative relationships to develop creative ways to advance institutional outcomes. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Consortium for Higher Education (SEPCHE), a non-profit organization incorporated in 1993, is a collaborative of eight private colleges and universities located in the Greater Philadelphia region. SEPCHE’s institutions are small to mid-sized colleges and universities, and like other institutions of higher education, they are increasingly challenged by several environmental factors including diminished growth in enrollment; reduced family financial capacity; limitations in availability and types of funding; and greater demand for accountability.

This chapter highlights the challenges faced by faculty to ensure that students are learning at the highest levels while balancing teaching, research and institutional responsibilities, and the role that collaborative professional development can play in helping faculty attend to these challenges. Several examples illustrate how faculty-led professional development efforts have expanded professional and research capacity efforts across institutions.

The chapter includes faculty perspectives on what has helped and hindered adoption of these efforts within and across institutions. It assesses institutional conditions and supports for sustained collaborations. These efforts are part of an initiative examining faculty work and student learning in the 21st century funded by the Teagle Foundation.

Purpose – This chapter argues that “Partnership Learning to learn” across different disciplinary and professional boundaries is integral to good practice and is necessary in order to promote and to support multidisciplinary practice and education.

Design/Methodology – The chapter draws upon empirical data collected as part of a research project based at Liverpool Hope University (United Kingdom) and previous work undertaken by the authors.

Findings – This chapter explores the models of leadership associated with good or promising collaboration. It suggests that this is likely to include an explicit understanding of the rationale, its role, and purpose; that debate and opposition are encouraged; and that space and time are created to facilitate structured conversations. Finally, a model of engaging with collaborative inquiry needs to be systematically developed.

Research implications – The chapter argues that this model offers insights into how good teacher education and professional development across different settings and disciplines can be promoted. In this chapter, the authors argue that working across boundaries is defined as involving academics, teachers, “experts,” and students.

Practical implications – The chapter suggests that this model of collaborative inquiry and practice has significant implications for how we might model our approach to professional and practitioner education and learning across different professional settings and boundaries.

Originality – The chapter draws upon existing and ongoing development work that has implications for holistic change within organizations.

This chapter presents a university’s School of Education partnership with three local elementary schools to provide learning and professional development opportunities for all stakeholders. Impacting student learning is the main goal of these collaborative endeavors, regardless of age. University pre-service educators perform a variety of activities with elementary students to extend hands-on learning experience beyond their coursework. Experiences focus on mutually beneficial activities for both parties which fulfills each one’s mission and vision for impacting student learning on both the elementary level and the teacher preparation program. Professional development includes activities that involve teacher-to-teacher initiatives that may be designed for teachers by teachers to share teaching strategies; research, both qualitative and quantitative, involving practitioners in the field using student-centered and innovative new instructional ideas in the classroom developing toolkits of best practices. Qualitative approaches are taken through interviews and teacher perceptions through the process and product of each professional development activity.

As part of a larger study into the influence of a Writers in the Schools (WITS) professional development consultancy, this narrative inquiry began just as Hurricane Harvey, the second most costly hurricane to hit the United States, devastated the Texas Gulf Coast in August 2017 and drew to a close in late 2020 during the COVID-19 global pandemic. This chapter explores the 2017–2018 school-year interactions between WITS Collaborative writer, Mary Austin (pseudonym), and six writing teachers with whom she worked at McKay High School (pseudonym) in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. With record flooding and widespread damage causing school-opening delays, teachers, students, and WITS consultants navigated a rip tide of emotions as they strived to balance educational/professional needs and duties with personal loss and unexpected financial burdens. This inquiry examines how WITS teacher professional development was carried out in the midst of these trying circumstances.