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Professional learning networks (PLNs) involve teachers’ collaboration with others outside of their school to improve teaching and learning. PLNs can facilitate teachers’ professional growth and school improvement. This study aims to explore the drivers for participation within PLNs, the enactment process and the impact of PLN participation on teachers, students and schools in Greece.

A descriptive phenomenological study was conducted to explore the lived experience of primary school teachers participating in PLNs.

The findings showed that individuals who were open to change were driving innovation to address a need or a lack in their daily practice that was not satisfied within their usual community of practice. The key element of the participation was peer collaboration with openness of communication without attendant accountability pressures. The change was mainly identified in teacher skills and the school climate. An individual could bring change only if the school is already open to change. In some cases, resistance to change in schools was identified before enactment or during enactment. The transformation of teachers’ and leaders’ stances is discussed, enabling the opportunity to maximise school improvement.

The study examines PLNs as European Union-funded initiatives that are developed by teachers in centralised education systems under the phenomenological research paradigm. It explores the PLNs in a different setting compared to the existing conceptual theory of change for PLNs.

Teacher-led inquiry in school learning environments is the critical and systematic analysis of pedagogical practice in flexible and agile learning environments that teachers undertake as researchers of their own practice. It is an iterative approach, combining theory and practice, operates over reasonably short time spans and involves substantial collaboration and participation amongst peers. Akin to action research, it works most effectively when it is combined with evidence on what works (and what works well) and what does not, specifically as it relates to student learning outcomes. In this introductory chapter, the authors synthesize scholarly research to set the context for teacher-led inquiry in school learning environments. The authors discuss the challenges and opportunities for schools and educators embarking on evidence-based teacher-led inquiry as a powerful form of professional learning for contemporary teachers.

Most of the current literature investigates workplace-based formal and informal learning separately; thus, the relationship between these two types of learning remains unclear. This study aims to fill this research gap, drawing on self-determination theory to bridge teachers’ formal and informal learning and uncover the relationship between the two.

The participants of the study are 1,886 primary and secondary in-service teachers in China. Structural equation modeling and bootstrapping are used to test the proposed model.

The study reveals complicated influencing mechanisms of formal learning on different types of informal learning among in-service teachers. Teachers’ basic psychological needs, satisfaction and challenge-seeking behavior are found to play crucial mediating roles in this process.

First, this study suggests that different configurations of intervention strategies should be formulated depending on the foci for improving teachers’ learning. Second, this study indicates that only highlighting the importance of reflection, which is the approach currently used, is not sufficient to improve teachers’ daily reflective practice. Third, there is an urgent need to design training programs to improve teachers’ abilities to purposefully expand their job boundaries, which could not only benefit teachers’ performance but also contribute to school improvement. For policymakers and school principals, we suggest that more attention be given to the satisfaction of teachers’ basic needs.

This study contributes to the literature on workplace learning by connecting formal and informal learning and elucidating how teachers’ reported formal learning influences their informal learning activities via varied paths. The findings have implications for continuous professional development policy and training programs in the workplace.

Current academic research on teacher learning is increasing in number and deepening in quality, but at the same time, the heterogeneity is growing significantly. Similar work is challenging to cross-check regarding conclusions due to the different research foci. This paper aims to provide a reliable theoretical framework and offers solid insights based on the existing research.

Based on the Onion model, 67 core literature in English and Chinese were coded through qualitative meta-analysis methods to explore environmental, behavioral, competence, belief, identity, mission and other factors that may impact teacher learning.

It was found that the quantitative structure of the current relevant studies was in an inverted triangular shape with three levels of steps, respectively, which can be summarized as structural environment, core behaviors and dominant mission. The heterogeneity between the findings mainly originated from two situations, oppositional and complementary and some structural adjustments were made to the Onion model according to the coding results to better represent the interaction of influences between the levels. It also analyzes current research trends and the centrality of learned behaviors based on the coding results.

The design of teacher learning activities should combine theoretical, practical and inquiry learning to ensure that teachers are kept fresh and motivated by sustained and varied stimuli.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to analyze teacher learning influences through qualitative meta-analysis and create node saturation to analyze the results, resulting in highly credible and valuable research findings.

Action research by three teaching teams to build the capacity of teachers, in preparation for the transition from a traditional heritage building to a new innovative learning facility, forms the basis of this chapter. The new building consisting of four storeys with seven innovative learning environments that support a wide range of teaching and learning opportunities challenged the teams to rethink their pedagogy and embark on a new and exciting journey. The story notes the challenges faced and the successes achieved as well as further action research once established within the new learning environments.

Stonefields School is an innovative school at the base of Maungarei, Mount Wellington, in Auckland, New Zealand. Doing things differently, creating and inquiring are at the heart of what we do as teachers.

At Stonefields, we have the opportunity to do this collaboratively, and hubs of teachers collaborate to create engaging, rich and relevant learning opportunities for our learners. We have a range of assessment tools at our disposal which help us to gain insights into our learner's self-efficacy (how they see themselves as learners) and their learning needs. We actively enquire into the impact of teacher practice and have evidenced how teacher collaboration can enable all of our learners to see success.

In this chapter, the authors explore how teacher collaboration in learning environments can help improve teacher practice. The authors will examine how facilitating deliberate collaborative inquiry in learning environments can allow teachers to notice, recognize and respond to learner needs. This, in turn, can lead to improved learner self-efficacy and improved achievement outcomes.

The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of the conditions and motivations that influence teachers to adopt innovations.

Using Diffusion of Innovation theory (Rogers, 2003) and Self-Determination theory (Ryan and Deci, 2017), data from two surveys (n = 568; n = 108) and qualitative follow-up interviews of Early Adopter teachers (n = 16) were triangulated to discern relationships among their identification as Early Adopters, satisfaction of their basic psychological needs (BPN) and their implementation of an educational innovation.

Early Adopters had a positive and statistically significant relationship with the implementation of the innovation. Satisfaction of teachers’ BPN had the largest impact on innovation.

The findings are preliminary and based on a small sample size of teachers. Reliability of the measure of BPN was not as high as the standard, but it did have the largest impact on implementation. Additional studies should explore the connections among Early Adopter teacher motivation, leadership and the satisfaction of their BPN.

School leaders should leverage the influence of Early Adopters to support innovation, and they should provide additional time, training and resources to supports teachers’ BPN.

This study examines how to identify and support Early Adopter teachers as enablers of change within schools. We know of no other studies that have used both Diffusion of Innovation theory and Self-Determination theory to understand the motivations of Early Adopter teachers.

This study addresses a gap in the knowledge on how longitudinal engagement in a school improvement initiative influences change in middle leaders’ (MLs') interactions and assesses how school–university partnerships around school improvement can support teachers with formal leadership roles (i.e. MLs’) leadership development.

Using a two-year longitudinal research design, university staff facilitated middle leadership training in a school-defined improvement initiative on lesson study. Results from a pre-test followed by two post-tests administered at one-year intervals were collected on social networks. Analyses examined changes in indegree and brokerage patterns among groupings of senior leaders (SL), subject leaders, cross-school specialists and teachers.

Accounting for staffing changes, 27 of 67 staff members participated in each survey, yielding 1,623 distinct ties connecting school members. Over the first year, advice-seeking increased by 225%. SLs’ initial propensity to consult peers shifted towards MLs and teachers. Subject leaders advising other leaders and teachers increased tenfold. Teachers’ peer-to-peer consultation increased by 2,000%. Specialists with school-wide responsibilities became the dominant group for advising other leaders, such as SLs and subject leaders. These shifts were sustained over the second year.

The study demonstrates that engagement in the school–university partnership support and the corresponding structural changes stimulated robust cross-school dialogue among teachers and various leaders. Brokerage patterns indicated an enhanced role for MLs in driving the school-defined improvement initiative which corresponded to university-designed development activities.

Social media is increasingly vital for educators to extend their professional networks and engage in meaningful conversations. This study aims to explore how Reddit facilitates these interactions as a platform for generative dialogical exchange. For English educators, generative dialogue is paramount for professional development and classroom practice.

To better understand this dynamic, we outline Hermans and Hermans-Konopka’s (2010) framework of generative dialogical exchange, review relevant literature related to the implications of social media use by educators and argue for the importance of Reddit as a site of exploration into dialogical exchange. After describing our artifact selection, we offer relevant data and conclude with understanding and implications.

We argue that although online educator communities, particularly those on Reddit, offer opportunities for broad dialogical exchange for English educators, these can be marked by a push and pull between the expansion of the dialogical space and a tendency to rein it back in through reinforcing traditional power dynamics.

Reddit is an understudied site for extending professional networks and fostering conversations among educators, providing a novel approach to understanding these dynamics through dialogical theory.