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The purpose of this paper is to shed light on teachers’ attention to student learning in post-lesson discussions in Lesson Study (LS) by exploring the depth and analytic stance of noticing (van Es, 2011) and by identifying interactions that may extend or narrow the levels of noticing.

The study has dug deeply into post-lesson discussions in the context of two different LS groups at a Norwegian lower secondary school.

The paper provides empirical insights about crucial elements of teachers’ learning processes pertaining to their professional noticing. Sharing of rich descriptions of evidence of student learning appeared to be a necessary foundation for the deepening of the teacher groups’ analytic approach. The study highlights the importance of teacher groups’ openness and attention to the collected data and a shared willingness to go deep into the interpretations. Interthinking and exploratory talk (Littleton and Mercer, 2013) are emphasised as important social interaction and talk modes to deepen the analytic stance and depth of noticing.

Even though this is a small study, it brings to light important knowledge about how interactions in post-research lesson discussions in LS can influence teachers’ professional noticing.

An implication of the study is to design observation forms that capture student learning as tools for teachers’ professional noticing.

This paper fulfils an identified need to investigate teachers’ learning processes in LS, including how interactions within a teacher group influence noticing.

The purpose of this study is to examine how dialogic spaces were co-constituted (opened, broadened and deepened) between students engaged in divergent and convergent collaborative learning tasks, orchestrated by teachers in Finnish primary and secondary schools. The concept of dialogic space refers to a dynamic, shared resource of ideas in dialogue and has come to represent an ideal form of educational interaction, in the contexts of collaborative learning, joint creative work and shared knowledge-building.

A socio-cultural discourse analysis of video-observed classroom dialogue, entailing the development of a new analytic typology, was undertaken to explore the co-constitution of dialogic space. The data are derived from two qualitative studies, one examining dialogue to co-create fictive video stories in primary-school classrooms (divergent task), the other investigating collaborative knowledge building in secondary-school health education (convergent task).

Dialogic spaces were opened through group settings and by the students’ selection of topics. In the divergent task, the broadening of dialogic space derived from the heterogeneous group settings, whereas in the convergent task, from the multiple and various information sources involved. As regards the deepening of dialogic space, explicit reflective talk remained scarce; instead the norms deriving from the school-context tasks and requirements guided the group dialogue.

This study lays the groundwork for subsequent research regarding the orchestration of dialogic space in divergent and convergent tasks by offering a typology to operationalise dialogic space for further, more systematic, comparisons and aiding the understandings of the processes implicated in intercreating and interthinking. This in turn is of significance for the development of dialogic pedagogies.

The article presents the construction of a conceptual framework, which is rooted in mathematics education and in dialogic analysis. It aims to analyse how dialogic interactions contribute to constructing teachers' mathematical problem-solving knowledge. The article provides one example of this analysis.

The networking between a content analysis framework (Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching Problem-Solving) and a dialogic analysis framework (Lesson Study Dialogue Analysis) is presented. This leads to the construction of indicators to quantitatively and qualitatively code our data: five meetings during one lesson study cycle of a group of eight Swiss primary teachers, working on the teaching of problem-solving.

This article does not present empirical findings. The developed conceptual framework is the result presented.

The presented framework allows modelling, on the one hand, the knowledge relating to the teaching and learning of problem-solving and, on the other hand, the analysis of interactions during a lesson study. The article does not contain the results of the research.

The use of our framework can contribute to teacher educators' and facilitators' training by highlighting which types of intervention are favourable to the development of knowledge.

Our analysis involves a “systematic coding” approach. It allows a fine-grained analysis of the interactions in relation to the evolution of knowledge. Such a systematic approach offers the possibility of questioning the coded data in various ways.

This chapter explores the benefits of joint lesson planning for student-teachers in two higher educational settings, one in Norway and the other in the UK. Lesson study is used as a vehicle for collaborative planning and teacher professional learning during field-practice in both contexts, but the models of lesson study implemented differ slightly to fit the respective initial teacher education (ITE) programmes. In both settings, however, student-teachers, mentor teachers and university tutors work in pairs or small groups to plan, teach and evaluate a research lesson together. The case studies reported in this chapter show the challenges which student-teachers face, but, at the same time, also reveal the potential of lesson study to open a dialogic space where they can share ideas with more experienced colleagues, gain greater awareness of the teaching and learning process and so become more effectively inducted into this community of practice. The chapter also explores the role of the ‘knowledgeable other(s)’, the issue of asymmetrical relationships in lesson study groups within the context of ITE and how this might impact on the learning of the different group members. Collaborative planning in lesson study groups in ITE is found to bridge the gap between what student-teachers learn during teacher training courses and what actually takes place in schools in the respective socio-cultural contexts discussed here.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of decision rules and agency in supporting project initiation decisions, and the influences of agency on decision-making effectiveness.

The study this paper is based upon used grounded theory methodology, and sought to understand the influences of individual decision makers on project initiation decisions within organizations. Data collection involved 28 participants who were involved in project initiation decisions within their organizations, who discussed the process of project initiation in their organization and their role within that process.

The study demonstrates that the overall effectiveness of project initiation decisions is a product of agency, process effectiveness or rule effectiveness. The employment of agency can have a direct influence on decision-making effectiveness, it can compensate for organizational inadequacies of a process or political nature, and it can be constrained in the evidence of formal and effective organizational practices.

While agency was recognized by all participants, there are clearly circumstances where actors perceive the ability to exercise agency to be externally constrained. The study is exploratory, contributing to the development of substantive theory. Theory testing as well as a more in-depth investigation of the underlying drivers of agency would be valuable.

The study provides executives and individuals supporting the initiation of projects with insights on how to effectively influence the effectiveness of project initiation decisions, and the degree to which personal characteristics influence organizational dynamics.

Most discussions of agency has been framed the subject as an executive- or board-level phenomenon. The current study demonstrates that agency is in fact being perceived and operationalized at all levels. Those demonstrating agency in the majority of instances in this study do so in exercising stewardship behaviours. This has important implications for how agency is perceived by executives, and by how agency is exercised by actors at all levels of the organization.

Maturity models have been widely adopted as a popular framework for improvement project management practices. Despite their prevalence, there is still minimal evidence that improvements in maturity correspond to improvements in performance or value. This paper aims to explore the challenges faced in applying project management maturity models and offers suggestions for their revision.

The paper highlights the presumptions in their development and use that are inhibiting relevance of maturity models. Case studies from a major research project explore the relationship between maturity and value. Insights are generated on how project management maturity models need to change in order to become relevant.

Project management maturity models presume that project management is universal, control oriented and consistent, and that maturity is a linear process. Empirical evidence demonstrates that the practice of project management varies, that different practices result in different value. The paper suggests that a contingent and contextual approach to assessment is required, which maturity models as currently defined may not be able to support.

This is a largely conceptual paper and draws on a limited number of case studies that derived maturity from a comprehensive understanding of project management practices. It is not tied to one specific model, and a model that would address the criticisms discussed here has not been conceived or developed.

This paper will have particular relevance for organizations, who may place excess faith in the rhetoric surrounding maturity models without questioning their underlying relevance or value. It is also of importance to those who develop maturity models and suggests strategies for their significant revision.

This paper takes an important look at whether maturity models actually deliver on their promise and argues that by both design and structure, they are unlikely to do so in their current form.

This paper aims to present recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering all library types.

This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, reports and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2018.

The paper provides a brief description of all 422 sources, and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians and anyone interested as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

Middle leaders are educators whose practices of building relational trust are critical for generating the kind of strong and sustainable professional learning communities necessary for leading productive site-based education development in their school. This chapter specifically focuses how building an ethic of relational trust, experienced in five interrelated dimensions, aligns with establishing core foundational conditions for building community. Building trust and communities of professional learners are not mutually exclusive – in fact, each reciprocally facilitates, progresses, supports, and sustains the development of the other. The foundations for community building, described as cornerstones, form over time and progressively involve, and achieve, contextuality, commitment, communication, collaboration, criticality, and collegiality. Reflection questions are provided throughout; these are designed to directly focus the attention of middle leaders towards understanding and developing their own trust practices, that with time, create conditions for generating strong viable communities of professional practice.

Today's organisations still face the duality of organising for both innovation and projects through organic structures while at the same time maintaining stability within their hierarchical structures. Issues, tensions and conflicts arise at the interfaces between these two/competing modes of organising. The purpose of this paper is to explore what really happens at the interfaces between the structures and governance modes that result from the prevalence of project‐oriented organisations. The theoretical framework is based upon the actor‐network theory (ANT) in order to capture networks construction around project management offices (PMO) deliverables that cross multiple organisational boundaries.

This research is of explorative nature. Even though the number of cases is limited to two, a strong research design was obtained through maximizing together their homogeneity and heterogeneity. Data were primarily collected from semi‐directed interviews with 29 individuals. Data analysis were done within a grounded theory approach. This study focus on one particular PMO deliverable: the project status report. The itinerary of the project status report was followed within each organisation.

What this study shows is the complexity of the translation process followed by a project status report. It highlighted specifically the existence of multiple arenas for negotiation. Interfaces can then be seen as translation centers where multiple perspectives on the project are discussed. Issues, tensions and conflicts are to be resolved when converging towards an irreversible unique point of control. Translations are not free. They incurred significant transaction costs which are invisible to the management team.

While many other perspectives would permit a better understanding of what happens at the interface between hierarchy and projects, this research focused on networks constructlon within the ANT framework. This research is exploratory and as such there are certain inherent limitations. First, it was limited to two case studies only. Second, only one deliverable was scrutinised through ANT. Further research should also be undertaken to link project monitoring and control functions to project governance.

Practical implications relate to the capability of anticipating the consequences of organising within dual structures. This research leads to three major conclusions: PMO is part of the power system and politics; there are costs to hyper‐control; and interfaces could be seen as learning opportunities.

This originality of this paper is twofold: the research subject and the theoretical framework. First, the research subject looked at politics and power systems within the organisational project management. While previous researches have identified issues, tensions and conflicts surrounding the management of multiple projects, none has clearly focused on this subject. Second, this research adopted asocial approach based on an ANT framework. This approach focuses on the networks construction where issues, tensions and conflicts can be observed while they unfold.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the gradual release of responsibility (GRR) model as an instructional framework for enacting culturally relevant literacy pedagogy in K-8 classrooms.

Approach – First, the authors frame a discussion on culturally relevant pedagogy via three central tenets and its significance for promoting equity and access in literacy education. Next, culturally relevant pedagogy is linked with the GRR model. Finally, authentic literacy practices that help bridge culturally relevant learning throughout the segments of the GRR model are delineated.

Findings – The authors believe that GRR models infused with culturally relevant pedagogical practices make literacy learning more equitable and accessible to students of Color. Toward that end, the authors provide multiple research-based instructional strategies that illustrate how the GRR model can incorporate culturally relevant pedagogical practices. These practical examples serve as models for the ways in which teachers can connect with students’ cultural backgrounds and understandings while expanding their literacy learning.

Practical implications – By demonstrating how K-8 teachers scaffold and promote literacy learning in ways that leverage diverse students’ cultural experiences, the authors aim to help teachers sustain students’ cultural identities and nurture their socio-critical consciousness.