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This study aims to explore vocational teachers' perceptions regarding workplace learning that align with students' training models and collaborative teaching involving specialised professionals within the context of industry-university collaboration.

Using a qualitative approach, the study conducted nine semi-structured interviews from three subject areas to better understand how vocational teachers’ work-based learning enhances their pedagogical practice in guiding students’ professional training. Thematic analysis was adopted to identify patterns that emerged from concepts and theories related to coding categories.

The authors identified three key components: vocational teachers’ workplace learning in connection with students’ training models, collaborative teaching with specialised professionals and teachers’ regular interactions with enterprises. The findings demonstrate that vocational teachers’ engagement in workplace learning pertaining to specific subjects provides a valuable avenue for enhancing curriculum design with collaboration with industry experts. This is key for supporting vocational students’ transitions into the workplace and ensuring their knowledge and skills are tailored to the industry-standard practice.

The data are limited to the review of interviews from three vocational subject areas as the representative sector in the study. However, this research implies effective knowledge transfer between workplace settings and vocational institutions, and vocational teachers need to integrate work-based vocational knowledge and skills in a relevant and applicable way across diverse classroom settings.

Fostering collaborative partnerships with local industries and professionals can be a primary way to facilitate authentic learning experiences that are linked to a specific vocational field and bridge the gap between diverse classroom learning and real-world work scenarios.

This study combines contemporary workplace learning theories with the conceptual understanding of vocational teachers’ involvement with industry-specific practice. Connecting teachers’ knowledge to the industry extends the input and collaboration from professionals and field experts to the diverse vocational classrooms.

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 study looked into the factors that could make a difference in teachers’ individual innovativeness and team innovativeness. We investigated five categories of factors: (1) innovation-related teacher preparedness, (2) innovation-related teacher professional development, (3) teacher professional practices, (4) teacher empowerment and (5) innovation-related teacher self-efficacy.

The data source is the 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) US data. The samples include about 165 schools and 2,560 teachers. We applied the structural equation model to analyze the data and the unit of analysis is set at the individual teacher-level.

We found that all factors matter except professional development and that they matter differently for different innovativeness outcomes.

This study is significant in several aspects: first, it is among the first that examined the factors that could make a difference in teacher innovativeness. Second, we differentiated between individual and team teacher innovativeness. Third, the findings highlight the importance of several factors including teacher preparation, teacher collaboration, teacher participation in school decisions and teacher self-efficacy.

The study aims to assess the effectiveness of engaging tutors in designing and using ICT integrated lesson activities in strengthening their pedagogical use of ICT competences.

Survey data from an intervention group of 70 tutors from two teachers colleges (TCs) were used to compare their level of ICT competences and domains of professional practice before and after the intervention. Document analysis, lesson observations and feedback from the learning management system (LMS) were used to describe tutors’ experiences from the intervention.

There was a statistically significant increase in tutors’ level of pedagogical use of ICT competences and domains of professional practice associated with hands-on practice in designing and implementing the intervention.

The intervention focus on hands-on practice, actual teaching and learning needs, and the use of active learning strategies like flipped classroom and the LMS, were useful means for tutors to make sense of pedagogical use of ICT competences.

The results offer useful insights to teacher education institutions and policymakers on how to prepare professional learning and supportive policies to enhance teaching and learning with ICT for addressing the learning needs of the subject matter.

Creating 16 ICT integrated lesson activities helped tutors to learn pedagogical use of ICT competences by doing. Use of such intervention could be a useful strategy in teacher education institutions to reposition ICT competence development from reproducing technological competences toward developing knowledge creators who could innovate their pedagogical practice with support from mentors, digital learning resources and networks.

This practitioner-focused article highlights a collaborative, school-wide project at a PDS that showcased elementary students’ strengths and talents. Based on the children’s book, The Smart Cookie (John, 2021), teachers and the university professor-in-residence developed professional learning communities, which inspired the creation of a space for all students to demonstrate ways in which they were “smart cookies” that aligned with our comprehensive mission of promoting inclusive practices.

Rooted in professional learning communities, teachers at our PDS spent the first half of the school year learning about chosen topics of social–emotional learning, stamina and neurodiversity. The Smart Cookie Project was created to demonstrate the connections between these topics. Students at the PDS were given the opportunity to create an original project that showcased their creativity, interests and talents. Projects were then displayed during a schoolwide showcase.

The impact of the project and the showcase demonstrated the importance of creating opportunities for both teacher and student innovation. The project brought the community together, allowed students to be viewed through strengths-based perspectives, helped teachers see how their own learning can positively impact their practice and emphasized the need for honoring student choice in the classroom.

The project discussed here can lend itself to fellow PDSs looking to adopt innovative instructional approaches, honor inclusive practices and situate students in places of strength.

Research has provided powerful evidence that what teachers do in the classroom matters most for the learning of students. Evidence also suggests that school leaders can make a significant difference to student learning via their influence on teachers' attitudes, beliefs and classroom practices. The purpose of this study was to examine if/how principal instructional leadership practices affect differentiated instruction in Omani schools, and understand the role that teacher collaboration and self-efficacy play in this dynamic.

The study used structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze data collected from a sample of 496 teachers working in public schools in Muscat, Oman.

The findings revealed no direct association between principal instructional leadership and differentiated instruction. Instead, the effects of principal instructional leadership on differentiated instruction were achieved indirectly through the mediation of teacher collaboration and teacher self-efficacy. Collaboration was also found to have a positive influence on the teachers' self-efficacy beliefs.

The significance of this study stems from its relevance to the educational developments unfolding not only in Oman, but in the Gulf region at large. Recent reviews of educational administration and leadership research in the Gulf states indicate the scarcity of empirical research investigating the relationship between principal leadership and teacher practices. This is problematic as it creates a gap in our knowledge of the factors that can support ongoing school improvement initiatives in the region. More specifically, we expect our findings to guide current educational reforms aimed at raising education quality via promoting effective teaching and learning in Omani schools.

This instrumental case study (Stake, 1995) explores the benefits experienced by mentor teachers who mentored resident teachers in a year-long residency program.

The study was grounded by the Benefits of Being a Mentor conceptual framework, as defined by Ragins and Scandura (1999). The participating mentor teachers engaged in semi-structured interviews and a focus group. The data were analyzed through inductive and deductive data analysis techniques.

Using inductive and deductive data analysis techniques, three themes emerged on the benefits of being a mentor teacher: (1) extra support in the classroom, (2) professional learning and growth opportunities, and (3) investing in the future of education. The teachers’ perceived benefits were related to the connectedness of their personal and professional growth, the growth of the resident teachers and their students’ learning.

Mentor teachers play a vital role in teacher residency programs, as they are the primary influence on their resident teachers’ pedagogical praxis. In a residency program, mentor teachers support resident teachers’ sustained teaching experience by hosting them for one full academic year in their classrooms; therefore, exploring the benefits they receive from serving in this role is essential.

Since teaching practice is the most important within-school determinant of student learning outcomes, a deepened understanding of how and why school leadership contributes to effective teaching is needed. This article aimed to systematically review the knowledge that has been accumulated about the indirect relations between school leadership and instructional practices.

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guided the selection of relevant articles from the databases Scopus and Google Scholar. Twenty-six published works met the eligibility criteria and were included in the narrative synthesis and content analysis.

The most frequently measured mediators of the effects of school leadership on teaching practice were teacher collaboration, professional learning and teacher self-efficacy. Most studies simultaneously modeled multiple mediated pathways from school leadership to teaching practice. However, only a few analyzed studies used time lags when examining relationships between constructs.

This is the first study to systematically review knowledge on pathways through which school leadership is related to classroom instruction. Thus, this review provides a comprehensive understanding of processes through which school leadership achieves its effects on instructional practices.

This article aims to contribute to a clearer understanding of the importance of mentor preparation and provide recommendations for effective mentor preparation programmes based on the literature.

A narrative review of a range of literature focussing on the importance and characteristics of effective mentor practice and preparation.

Many mentors working in educational contexts lack adequate preparation, and a shift in mentoring practice from a mentor as expert approach, which mentors are likely revert to without training, to a more collaborative relationship in line with educative mentoring is recommended. Relationship building, working collaboratively and encouraging critical reflection are essential mentoring capabilities, and can be supported by participation in effective mentoring preparation programmes. Characteristics of these programmes include: providing time for mentors to reflect on their personal capabilities and attitudes; strengthening their knowledge about mentoring and learning a range of approaches and tools.

Implications for mentor preparation include consideration of curricula that focus on the nature of effective mentoring relationships, provision of effective observation-based feedback and the facilitation of critical reflection. Blended learning models appear to have potential and organisational leaders need to recognise and value mentoring to ensure that it is prioritised.

This article makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the nature of effective mentor preparation programmes.

This paper focuses on prospective teachers’ (PTs) participation in a lesson study (LS) that prompted them to research their own practice. We seek to describe the dimensions of PTs’ knowledge of student learning developed during the process and the LS features fostering it.

The participants were two PTs, a teacher educator, a cooperating teacher and a researcher. The LS was integrated into a Portuguese initial elementary teacher education program. Following a qualitative approach, we used participant observation.

The PTs developed their knowledge of students’ learning of the concept of area in four dimensions: theories; students’ interests and expectations; ways students interact with the content and students’ strengths and weaknesses in learning the concept. To support this development, the LS design considered follow-up sessions and emphasised collaborative work.

This study focuses on PTs researching their practice and disseminating the results, which has been overlooked in previous research of LS with PTs. The results highlight the potential of LS to motivate PTs to research their practice and emphasise the importance of involving them in disseminating LS results.