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The authors are developing a model for rural science teacher professional development, building teacher expertise and collaboration and creating high-quality science lessons: technology-mediated lesson study (TMLS).

TMLS provided the means for geographically distributed teachers to collaborate, develop, implement and improve lessons. TMLS uses technology to capture lesson implementation and collaborate on lesson iterations.

This paper describes the seven steps of the TMLS process with examples, showing how teachers develop their content and pedagogical knowledge while building relationships.

The TMLS approach provides an innovative option for teachers to collaborate across distances and form strong, lasting relationships with others.

This study explores the role of previous occupational identity in the formation of the (new) teacher identity of vocational teachers. The focus is on how vocational teachers discover their teaching identity, how they describe the connection between their previous occupation and teacher identity and how they describe a competent member of the teaching community.

The theoretical approach is inspired by Communities of Practice (CoP) theory. More specifically, the realignment between socially demanded competence in the profession and personal experience as well as identification with the teaching community are discussed. The research material comes from 14 interviews with vocational teachers in different disciplines.

Findings indicate first that the process of professional identity (trans)formation was initiated by finding one's teaching self when the individuals became aware of their interest in teaching by discovering that they had already achieved some sort of teaching-related competence. Second, individuals had been connecting their professional identities – finding common competence between their previous occupation and the teaching role. Third, vocational teachers experienced legitimising their competence and their new identity with reference to what their new CoP instructed as important competence (regime of competence).

While teachers' vocational competence is not scrutinised, their teaching competence needs to be constantly proved. This imbalance often leads to teachers returning to an aspect of their identity that is well established – their vocational competence. Looking back to their occupational competences constitutes a realignment backwards, when teachers attempt to serve their new professional goal by drawing on old competence.

The emergence of networks within education has been driven by a number of factors, including: the complex nature of the issues facing education, which are typically too great for single schools to tackle by themselves; changes to educational governance structures, which involve the hollowing out of the middle tier and the introduction of new approaches with an individualized focus; in addition is the increased emphasis on education systems that are “self-improving and school-led”. Within this context, the realization of teacher and school improvement actively emerges from establishing cultures of enquiry and learning, both within and across schools. Since not every teacher in a school can collaboratively learn with every other teacher in a network, the most efficient formation of networks will comprise small numbers of teachers learning on behalf of others.

Within this context, Professional Learning Networks (PLNs) are defined as any group who engage in collaborative learning with others outside of their everyday community of practice; with the ultimate aim of PLN activity being to improve outcomes for children. Research suggests that the use of PLNs can be effective in supporting school improvement. In addition, PLNs are an effective way to enable schools to collaborate to improve educational provision in disadvantaged areas. Nonetheless harnessing the benefits of PLNs is not without challenge. In response, this paper explores the notion of PLNs in detail; it also sheds light on the key factors and conditions that need to be present if PLNs are to lead to sustained improvements in teaching and learning. In particular, the paper explores the role of school leaders in creating meaningful two-way links between PLNs and their schools, in order to ensure that both teachers and students benefit from the collaborative learning activity that PLNs foster. The paper concludes by suggesting possible future research in this area.

As the P-12 student landscape continues to grow in cultural and linguistic diversity, teacher preparation programs have yet to adequately prepare teacher candidates' teaching and learning skills in meeting the academic and socio-emotional needs of diverse student demographics. This article examines teacher candidates’ cultural competence and cultural responsiveness to enhance candidates' educator preparation and stimulate candidates' personal growth development as developing culturally and linguistically responsive new teachers. While many teacher preparation programs require one multicultural or diversity education course, the authors examine a minority serving institution's integration of a cultural immersion experience for teacher candidates as one way of supporting their development as culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogues. This paper aims at supporting school districts' need of culturally competent new teachers who have the content knowledge and pedagogy to teach and support culturally and linguistically diverse children. Recognizing this need, this qualitative analysis highlights the importance of and a need for cultural and linguistic competence among teacher candidates. Findings from this study provides a means by which universities can implement cross-cultural coursework and field-based experiences to prepare culturally responsive teacher candidates.

This study examines the social organizational structure of one early childhood education (ECE) center in Finland and the relationship between this structure and the roles and the responsibilities of the members of the organization.

The research is a qualitative case study with ethnographic features. Its variables for content analysis are based on Henry Mintzberg's theory of organizational design.

The study's results show that the organizational structure of the ECE center follows the organizational configuration of a Professional bureaucracy and that the multiprofessional teams follow the configuration of a Simple structure. The structures for centralization and decentralization are suitable for a professional bureaucracy, but the roles of the members of the organization and the processes for shared decision-making lack clarification. The shortage of qualified ECE teachers disrupts the function of the organization and the work of ECE leaders.

The educational background of subjects may have affected the findings.

The study uses Henry Mintzberg's organizational structure theory to evaluate how and why power is distributed and activities are coordinated at the ECE center. The results also show what parts of the organization pose challenges that most commonly disrupt the organization's operations. With these findings, it is possible to expand the understanding of roles and responsibilities in the currently reforming ECE environment and what ECE centers need to function effectively. The study is part of a larger research project and will be continued to examine the leadership culture of the ECE center.

This paper shares findings from a multi-year literacy professional development partnership between a school district and university (2014–2019). We share this case of a Literacy Cohort initiative as an example of cross-institutional professional development situated within several of NAPDS’ nine essentials, including professional learning and leading, boundary-spanning roles and reflection and innovation (NAPDS, 2021).

We asked, “In what ways did the Cohort initiative create conditions for community and collaboration in the service of meaningful literacy reforms?” Drawing on social design methodology (Gutiérrez & Vossoughi, 2010), we sought to generate and examine the educational change associated with this multi-year initiative. Our data set included programmatic data, interviews (N = 30) and artifacts of literacy teaching, learning and leading.

Our findings reflect the emphasis areas that are important to educators in the partnership: diversity by design, building relationships through collaboration and rooting literacy reforms in teacher leadership. Our discussion explores threads of reciprocity, simultaneous renewal and boundary-spanning leadership and their role in sustaining partnerships over time.

This paper contributes to our understanding of building and sustaining a cohort model of multi-year professional development through the voices, perspectives and experiences of teachers, faculty and district administrators.

This research aims to explore leadership approaches that foster deeper learning and facilitate the transition from traditional schooling to a model aligned with the demands of the post-industrial digital knowledge society.

Employing a mixed-methods approach, the authors conducted surveys among school principals within a network of schools embracing deeper learning based on ten distinct but interlocking criteria that define this particular model of deeper learning. Through in-depth follow-up interviews with school leaders, the authors investigated the factors and obstacles that support sustainable implementation and scalability of deeper learning, with a specific focus on the role of transformational leadership.

During the implementation of transformative practices like deeper learning, school leaders demonstrate diverse perspectives on the necessary changes for their successful integration. Leaders inclined toward a “transactional” leadership style concentrate on changes within individual classrooms. Conversely, leaders exemplifying “transformational leadership” possess a broader vision and address systemic factors such as teacher collaboration, assessment regulations and the effective utilization of time and space within schools. To achieve widespread adoption of deeper learning across schools and the education system, it is essential to recruit more transformational leaders for formal leadership positions and reorient leadership training toward transformational approaches.

The deeper learning model developed for this intervention encompasses a four-stage process: Teachers initially collaborate in small teams to co-design interdisciplinary, deeper learning units. The actual units consist of three sequences: knowledge acquisition, where students gain knowledge through direct instruction supplemented by personalized learning on digital platforms; team-based co-creative and co-constructive tasks facilitated by teachers once students have acquired a solid knowledge base and the completion of authentic tasks, products or performances in sequence III. While small groups of intrinsically motivated teachers have successfully implemented the model, achieving broader scalability and dissemination across schools requires significant “transformational leadership” to challenge traditional norms regarding teacher collaboration, assessment practices and the efficient use of time and space in schools.

This paper presents a structured model of deeper learning based on ten distinct but interlocking quality criteria tested within a network of 26 schools. The model has demonstrated transformative effects on participating schools, albeit primarily observed in smaller substructures of large secondary schools. Teachers who previously worked independently have begun to collaboratively design learning experiences, resulting in “hybrid” classrooms where physical and digital spaces merge and extend to include maker spaces and out-of-school learning environments. Traditional summative assessments have been replaced by various forms of embedded formative assessment. However, these innovations are currently driven by small groups of intrinsically motivated teachers. The research provides insights into the type of school leadership necessary for comprehensive scaling and system-wide dissemination of deeper learning.

Whilst an urgent need for collaboration is increasingly seen in education to better respond to socio-educational challenges, in practice, collaboration between primary school teachers and their partners is hampered by barriers. The aim of this study is to shed light on these barriers from a human resource management (HRM) angle, using the ability, motivation and opportunity (AMO) framework.

Quantitative and qualitative data were collected amongst staff in 16 child centres offering joint pre-school, education and childcare.

The authors' findings suggest that in general, both teachers and childcare workers perceive themselves as skilled and motivated for collaboration. They perceive aspects of opportunity to perform as most important barriers.

Based on this research, school leaders are advised to organise opportunities for collaboration, especially by fostering an inclusive organisational climate and scheduling sufficient time for collaboration.

This paper contributes to the relatively scarce body of research on HRM within the education sector. Furthermore, it illustrates the applicability of the AMO model for gaining insight into how educational management can be utilised to foster increased collaboration between teachers and childcare workers.

Background: How many higher education researchers are there in the world? How many academic articles are published by researchers each year? This paper aims to answer these two questions by tracking the number of higher education teachers and the number of publications over the past four decades.

Methods: We collected data on the number of higher education institutions and researchers from the United Nations, the World Bank, and the US, China, and UK governments (three countries with the largest number of academic publications in recent years). We used Scopus to obtain the number of publications per year. The growth of higher education researchers and academic publications were characterized using 4-parameter logistic models.

Results: The number of higher education teachers-cum-researchers increased from 4 million in 1980 to 13.1 million in 2018 worldwide. Concurrently, the number of academic publications increased from 0.65 million in 1980 to 3.16 million in 2018 based on data from Scopus. At the country level, the number of academic publications from the USA increased from 0.15 million in 1980 to 0.70 million in 2018, while that from China increased by almost 1,000 times from 629 in 1980 to 0.60 million in 2018.

Conclusions: The number of higher education researchers would reach 13.6 million and they would publish 3.21 million academic articles in 2020, imposing enormous pressure to publishers, peer-reviewers, and people who want to understand emerging scientific development. Additionally, not all academic publications are easily assessable because most articles are behind pay-walls. In addition, unethical research practices including falsification, fabrication, plagiarism, slicing publication, publication in a predatory journal or conference, etc. may hinder scientific and human development.

This paper is among the first case studies in developing countries that comprehensively investigate the historical evolution of a country's teacher professional development (TPD) system, the outcomes of the current TPD and the factors underlying the stagnation of TPD quality.

The authors collected data from three types of sources—documents, observations and interviews. Documents examined included the handbooks of the TPD program, handouts for teachers, training modules from TPD workshop sessions and research publications or reports on TPD programs in Indonesia introduced from the 1970s to 2018. The authors conducted formal interviews with trainers, education stakeholders and teachers who participated in recent TPD.

The findings indicate that, on paper, TPD initiatives in Indonesia have included some of the positive features of TPD highlighted in the literature. However, these factors have not been consistently included in the reforms rolled out over the decades, and, indeed, many of the less desirable features of those reforms have endured. The analysis also reveals the absence of four key factors in multiple TPD reforms that led to teachers' and other stakeholders' dissatisfaction with the TPD implementation. These include consideration of teachers' skills, background and capacities; relevance of training; feedback provided to teachers; and workshop follow-up.

The research indicates that the long-term issues of ineffectiveness of TPD in Indonesia are driven by the incoherence of different elements of the education system. This extends beyond the technical and operational elements of the TPD itself. The absence of a clear vision of the purposes of teacher development has created confusion and uncertainty for teachers.