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The MOFET Institution, which began under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, is Israel’s national center for research and professional development on teacher education. It consists of three communities: (1) the Writing Channel; (2) the Study Channel; and (3) the Research Channel. MOFET additionally has an Academic Committee that assists the aforementioned communities in their deliberations if needed. Although the MOFET Institute deals with multiple and sometimes conflicting agendas (i.e., Ministry of Education, participating teacher education colleges, the institute’s own goals), it remains one of the most unique and powerful ways to nationally address teacher education research and dissemination and the development of teacher educators in the world.

This chapter describes how a college of education sponsored child development laboratory school responded to P-12 school reform movement efforts, particularly related to the establishment of professional development schools for the preparation of teachers. In its efforts to create a diverse learning community where all constituents (teachers, preservice teachers, and parents) are engaged in collaborative inquiry, the school sought inspiration from other sources, most notably the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education. In both the professional development school standards and the principles of the Reggio Emilia approach, emphasis is given to learning to teach within practice, teachers as researchers, making teaching and learning visible and egalitarian roles in carrying out the work of the school.

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.

Educational inequities that are often systemic and the result of structural oppression persist in schools under/serving minoritized youth and communities. This chapter illustrates how professional learning networks (PLNs) and the practice of collaborative professionalism within them have served to support educators, positioned at multiple levels, in their effort to serve all children well, and especially those who are most marginalized. Collaborative professionalism emphasizes collective responsibility and student and teacher empowerment through PLNs. Further, the collaborative professionalism model incorporates elements of culture and context to ensure that collaborative efforts are responsive to the students and communities educators are purposed to partner with and serve. In this chapter, the authors highlight two such cases of collaborative professionalism through PLNs in Colombia and Ontario, Canada. These cases provide a model for how collaborative professionalism within PLNs can be utilized to enhance teaching and learning for all teachers and students across cultures and contexts, while attending explicitly to educational inequities.

Partnerships between public schools and institutions of higher education provide teachers with opportunities for leadership. Teachers at the University of Wyoming (UW) Lab School belong to a community of learners and leaders partnering with the UW’s Education College. In this school–university partnership, a strong culture endures in which teachers are viewed as leaders supporting the preparation of future educators and embracing active involvement in the school community. Professional development practices are implemented through the partnership to enhance teacher leadership skills. This chapter explores how professional learning communities, school learning walks, and co-teaching strategies support lab school teacher leaders as learners and change agents.

Purpose – This chapter describes the structure and environment of the Cougar Literacy Clinic, the theoretical framework, and the transferred and transformed knowledge and practices that support the constituents as a community of learners.

Theoretical perspective/methodology – Our research embraces theories of transfer and transformation, self-extending systems, intersubjectivity, social constructivism, social learning, and social cultural that helps to explain how children, families, teachers, other educators, administrators, professors, and community members learn and benefit through mutual interactions, as they find ways to help each other become better thinkers and decision makers. The data were categorized into four types of practices from the clinical experience that have transferred to and transformed the school and community. These categories of practices include assessment, instruction, coaching and consultation, and family–school–community literacy connections. The data analysis and interpretation demonstrate the importance of having a shared understanding regarding literacy development, learning, and teaching that enhances each member's intellectual and academic growth.

Practical implications – Our Cougar Literacy Clinic innovations, built on beliefs of shared understanding, can be a model for both existing and newly established clinics that are striving to transform the thinking of each member involved. During assessment practices, each of the constituents will learn to make informed decisions on the selection of assessments and analysis of assessment data, confidently identify their own and others strengths and needs, and provide constructive feedback. In the areas of instruction, reciprocal coaching, and family–school–community literacy connections, each of the constituents will learn to focus on strengths and prior knowledge, scaffold learning, and pose and respond to questions.

Rural schools have typically been strong on community but weak on professional learning. Their small size and geographical isolation have meant that much of the recent reform movement focused on professional learning communities has passed them by. But there is no reason why rural educators cannot participate in professional learning networks (PLNs) and benefit from heightened levels of collegiality that can be experienced across schools. However, intentional design for deeper collaborative work and face-to-face connection is necessary for PLN members to reap the benefits from increased professional capital and teacher leadership opportunities. This chapter describes the work of the Northwest Rural Innovation and Student Engagement (NW RISE) network in the United States. NW RISE brings together rural educators in gatherings that take place every six months, helps them to form “job-alike” groups focused on academic subject matter or cross-contextual themes, and provides support for shared curriculum design. This chapter describes how rural educators have seized upon the resources in NW RISE to promote student engagement and to develop their professional capacity across the network’s schools.

The purpose of this chapter is to consider a doctoral dividend in regard to leading, learning and researching.

Our methodology is to analyse the chapters here presented and argue for key findings of the doctorate as an educational dividend. The doctorate yields a distinctive dividend in three important ways. First, it provides a strategic approach to purposes, processes and practices embedded in professional learning that is required for a profession committed to self-improving education systems to provide high quality learning opportunities for students in their local and globalized contexts culturally, economically and politically. Second, because it provides a valuable contribution to the knowledge economy and role models the discovery approach to knowledge generation. Third, it enables the profession to develop the knowledge, skills and experience required to engage with what counts for evidence when making decisions.

The profession can share these ways of thinking and doing with all stakeholders in communities of practice which move beyond students and staff within education systems.

The social implications are that the doctorate enables capacity building for professional, organizational and participant learning communities and networks, thus creating new and effective directions for knowledge creation, transformative learning and an understanding of quality in a local, national and international context.

A review of publications in teaching and teacher education over 10 years (2000–2010) on teacher professional development is the subject of this chapter. The first part synthesises production referred to learning, facilitation and collaboration, factors influencing professional development, effectiveness of professional development and issues around the themes. The second part selects from the production nine articles for closer examination. The chapter concludes by noting how the production brings out the complexities of teacher professional learning and how research and development have taken cognizance of these factors and provided food for optimism about their effects, although not yet about their sustainability in time.