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The purpose of this study was to examine how participants experienced and perceived an M.Ed. program that had a school-based design. In particular, the authors sought to understand: (1) how participants experienced being in a school-based cohort and (2) whether and how participants experienced the three designated tenets of the M.Ed. program: teacher inquiry, social justice and student engagement and motivation.

This qualitative study used semi-structured focus group interviews (n = 7) to examine teachers’ perceptions, using a constant comparative method (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) of open coding to analyze the data and determine emergent themes.

The findings indicate the design of this school-based M.Ed. program provided both social and academic benefits including strengthening teachers’ working relationships and their understanding of students outside their own classroom and a transfer from individual learning to organizational benefit. Teachers positively perceived the three tenets that guided the first year of the program, especially the ability to study social justice and student motivation in depth.

This study has implications for teacher education and retention as well as how boundary spanning roles in PDS schools can impact graduate students’ experiences in schools. Given the current teacher shortage concerns, it is important to understand how M.Ed. programs can be designed with teacher needs at the forefront so learning is relevant and rewarding, both to the individual and the school.

While there are many studies that examine the use of cohorts in education, particularly in doctoral programs, few, if any, studies examine a school-based cohort M.Ed. program for practicing teachers. This study also puts a unique spotlight on how boundary-spanning roles can benefit not only teacher candidates but also practicing teachers in their M.Ed. programs.

Futures thinking is used by governments to consider long-term strategic approaches and develop policies and practices that are potentially resilient to future uncertainty. English in Action (EIA), arguably the world's largest English language teacher professional development (TPD) project, used futures thinking to author possible, probable and preferable future scenarios to solve the project's greatest technological challenge: how to deliver audio-visual TPD materials and hundreds of classroom audio resources to 75,000 teachers by 2017. Authoring future scenarios and engaging in possibility thinking (PT) provided us with a taxonomy of question-posing and question-responding that assisted the project team in being creative. This process informed the successful pilot testing of a mobile-phone-based technology kit to deliver TPD resources within an open distance learning (ODL) platform. Taking the risk and having the foresight to trial mobile phones in remote rural areas with teachers and students led to unforeseen innovation. As a result, EIA is currently using a mobile-phone-based technology kit with 12,500 teachers to improve the English language proficiency of 700,000 students. As the project scales up in its third and final phase, we are using the new technology kit — known as the 'trainer in your pocket' — to foster a 'quiet revolution' in the provision of professional development for teachers at scale to an additional 67,500 teachers and nearly 10 million students.

This article highlights the dynamic and evolving nature of libraries and the role of librarians within the changing landscape. It discusses how libraries have traditionally operated and how they have been impacted by 4IR and external factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study employed a mixed methods research approach, combining an online questionnaire to derive quantitative data and interviews to provide qualitative data. The follow-up interviews provided a comprehensive understanding of how academic librarians at the DUT library use Continuing Professional Development (CPD) to adapt to the evolving environment.

This paper reports that there was consensus that CPD empowers the librarians to adapt seamlessly to the dynamic library landscape. It equips them with the knowledge and skills to stay updated on the latest trends, technologies and best practices in their field.

The findings carry implications for the planning and executing of ongoing CPD programmes and activities across all academic libraries.

This study provides an insight into the results of the importance of CPD for librarians within a developing country in southern Africa.

Higher levels of participation in school are linked to greater academic performance, better health and well-being and positive long-term outcomes for young people. Evidence shows that for students with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD), participation in school-based occupations is often restricted in comparison to their peers. Given the recent advancements towards introducing a new model of school-based occupational therapy in Ireland, this paper aims to discuss how occupational therapy can support students with EBD to increase their participation within the post-primary school context. The opinions in this paper are derived from the authors’ experience in the development of this practice in the Republic of Ireland.

The authors reviewed current literature and reflected on current practice to describe the unique role of occupational therapy in supporting students with EBD in the school environment.

Occupational therapists have potential to play a key role in school-based support for students with EBD. The authors describe how occupational therapists can promote whole school understanding of EBD and enable skill development, self-regulation, participation and school belonging, among youths with EBD. There is a significant lack of literature guiding practice in this area. Further research is required to explore professional issues and identify best practice.

This paper aims to provoke consideration of how school-based occupational therapists can play a crucial role in supporting students with EBD who are otherwise at risk of occupational injustice.

The present study aims to reveal common and diverging trends in the development of pedagogical competences of vocational education and training (VET) teachers and trainers in Italy and Lithuania.

A structured survey was administered to Italian and Lithuanian teachers. The collected data were analysed and compared.

Results show that there are many common challenges and problems in the development of pedagogical competencies of the VET teachers in both countries; e.g.: the marginalisation of the VET teacher's work and working conditions, especially the dissatisfying wages and poor career opportunities, and the absent or weak institutionalisation of the VET teacher's qualifications and training.

The emerged results can be useful for directors of VET-centres and VET-schools to manage training and pedagogical growth of teachers both in Italy and in Lithuania. Moreover, the outputs can be considered as a set of suggestions also by the policymakers both at national and European level.