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The purpose of this study is to explore Swedish police education teachers’ informal workplace learning and its perceived value for their professional development. Two categories of teachers, police teachers and university teachers, with different professional knowledge and experience, work together at the police education unit.

The method used was in-depth interviews with teachers working at a Swedish police education unit.

Informal workplace learning was perceived by both teacher groups to be of great value for gaining knowledge about the local practice and for their professional development. Their learning emerged in discussions, observations and practically oriented activities in their daily work. Four conclusions: firstly, the teachers’ informal workplace learning was socially and practice-oriented and learning emerged in a collaborative, reciprocal and active process. Secondly, the embodied nature of the learning is evident in the teachers’ joint activities in the teaching practice. Thirdly, it takes time and active involvement in the local practice to become a professional teacher in this kind of education. Fourthly, an educational structure where academic knowledge and experience can be integrated with police knowledge and experience constitutes an important basis for teachers’ professional development in police education and training.

The study’s focus on police education and the professional development of teachers in this specific practice contributes to increased knowledge of the social, practice-oriented and embodied nature of informal workplace learning.

The paper aims to examine how a professional development school-district (PDS-D) partnership, enacting an improvement science stance, collectively explored social-emotional learning (SEL) during collaboratively designed professional learning experiences.

This qualitative study, guided by an improvement science orientation, enacted an iterative research design. Data sources consisted of anecdotal field notes and artifacts from 12 professional learning sessions. Using a constant comparative method, the authors applied an inductive thematic analysis to identify salient themes across data related to teacher wonderings and identified goals.

The paper illuminates teachers' voices while highlighting information gleaned from participant wonderings, their identified goals and how this information informed the iterative development of future professional learning experiences within a district-university partnership.

Due to the chosen research approaches and limited number of participants, the research results may lack generalizability.

This paper provides original insight into collaborative development of recursive professional learning experiences within partnership spaces.

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 provides an analysis of professional development school (PDS) dissertation research that focuses on learning in PDSs. These 103 dissertations written between 1990 and 2020 address an aspect of learning in PDS work, including inquiry as a pedagogical learning tool, student learning PK-12, intern/teacher candidate learning, university teacher educator learning, and inservice teacher learning. From the current exploration of PDS dissertations, most especially from the comparison studies, the authors have learned that there is still no clear path to presenting PDS as having a positive impact when compared with non-PDS experiences..

Within each of these categories, the authors examine the dissertations by methodology and explore common themes among dissertation findings. As the PDS movement enters its third decade of inquiry and builds its efficacy on models of learning, the findings provide insight into the degree to which PDS scholars are building on the past to determine future PDS research agendas around learning.

The authors examine the dissertations by methodology and explore common themes among dissertation findings. The themes included: intern learning does happen in PDS sites; PDSs provide structures for intern learning; teacher educators can learn from their PDS work; dissertations in the area of student learning overwhelmingly had inconclusive findings, except for research that focused on targeted interventions, which demonstrated student gains.

With fewer PDS-focused dissertations being written in more recent years, the authors wonder if the complexity of PDS may be a deterrent to the growth and sustainability of this model?

From the current exploration of PDS dissertations, most especially from the comparison studies, the authors have learned that the authors still do not have a clear path to presenting PDS as having a positive impact when compared with non-PDS experiences. However, the authors are beginning to understand the types of studies that are needed to move this agenda forward and hope the work will help inform the PDS community of some.

This is the first known study of PDS dissertations across time.

This paper presents emerging findings from an ongoing research project which aimed to explore online lesson study (OLS) as a vehicle for teacher collaborative professional learning.

Two parallel OLS cycles with two OLS teams were facilitated by the author using Zoom and Google Drive as digital collaborative tools. Each OLS team comprised three primary teachers who taught in three different schools, with both teams' research lessons taking cross-curricular science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) focus. In order to explore the influence of OLS on teachers' collaborative professional learning outcomes in STEM, a qualitative case study approach was adopted, with data drawn and thematically analysed from OLS meeting transcripts, semi-structured interviews with teachers and the author's reflective diary. Boundary crossing is used as a theoretical lens to ascertain the potential of OLS as a vehicle for teacher collaborative professional learning.

Findings suggest that OLS facilitated collaborative learning and positively contributed to teacher participants' co-construction of knowledge in relation to STEM teaching approaches.

The study described in this paper represents the first OLS conducted in the Irish context and also represents the first inter-school lesson study (LS) conducted in the Irish primary context.

This paper aims to examine and discuss learning conditions for teachers, in the context of choice and decentralisation reforms.

This article is based on analyses of 30 interviews with Swedish upper secondary teachers focusing on their experiences of their conditions for learning.

This paper shows how teachers at upper secondary level identify their subjects as the most important to learn more within. Secondly, we also show that spatial and temporal aspects of organisation of work seem to influence the conditions for subject learning, where the interviewees in many ways contrast their own view to how they describe their work being organised.

Our findings may have currency for other professional groups with similar governance-contexts, and teachers in other similar governance-contexts.

These findings indicate the need to further develop workplace learning strategies founded upon the understanding of schools as workplaces, taking occupational values into account. Furthermore, these strategies should be seen as a core Human Resource Management issue, as they can potentially enhance the work environment, thus increasing the profession’s attractiveness.

We show that spatial and temporal aspects of organisation of work seem to influence the conditions for the sought after subject learning, and that the teachers and the school management seem to identify with different and clashing ideals in terms of what, when, how and with whom to learn.

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.

The study aims to present a logic map linking the Professional Development School (PDS) Nine Essentials as a PDS theory of action and offer an analysis of dissertations that compare outcomes of learning in PDS and non-PDS contexts.

For this current study, the authors identified 25 of the 210 dissertations from a larger study that used a comparison methodology to provide a window into how learning in PDS and non-PDS settings may differ. In reviewing these comparison studies, the authors identified a set of clustered themes, as well as a variety of comparison constructs and measurements researchers used to determine the impact of PDS.

Five themes emerged including (1) the experience of learning to teach in a PDS setting vs. a non-PDS; (2) the experience of teaching in a PDS vs. non-PDS; (3) teacher candidate quality in a PDS vs. non-PDS; (4) teacher quality in a PDS vs. non-PDS; (5) school leader quality in a PDS vs. non-PDS; and (6) K-12 student learning in PDS vs. non-PDS.

Limitations of this study include the complications related to comparison, logic-related fallacies and the complexity of capturing simultaneous renewal.

In the 30th year of PDS work, the study utilizes a theory of action comprised of linking the PDS Nine Essentials to situate the comparison dissertation analysis of outcomes in PDS and non-PDS contexts suggesting challenges and possibilities and perhaps a direction for new research questions.

This study aims to investigate how primary teachers, when taking part in digital didactic design (D³) workshops at the Digital Laboratory Centre at the university, develop their insights about how digital tools can be designed and further used in their teaching of science. The research question addresses how D³ can be used to develop primary teachers’ knowledge about teaching science with digital technologies.

During two semesters, 14 primary science teachers from three different schools participated in an in-service course at the university. Five D³ workshops lasting 4 h each were conducted with the aim to analyze, design and implement digital tools based on the needs of teachers and students. This includes discussions about the technological, pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) framework and further recommendations about how to choose, design, implement and evaluate digital tools for different teaching and learning situations. In between the workshops, the teachers were told to reflect on their experiences with colleagues and students and share their ideas and reflections to support collegial learning.

The results indicate that D³ has an opportunity to promote deep learning experiences with a framework that encourages teachers and researchers to study, explore and analyze the applied designs-in-practice, where teachers take part in the design process. This study further indicates that having teachers explicitly articulates their reasoning about designing digital applications to engage students’ learning that seems important for exploring the types of knowledge used in these design practices and reflecting on aspects of their teaching with digital technologies likely to influence their TPACK.

This research indicates that the increasing prevalence of information communication technology offers challenges and opportunities to the teaching and learning of science and to the scientific practice teachers might encounter. It offers solutions by investigating how primary teachers can design their own digital technology to meet students’ science learning needs. One limitation might be that the group of 14 teachers cannot be generalized to represent all teachers. However, this study gives implications for how to work with and for teachers to develop their knowledge of digital technologies in teaching.

As this project shows teachers can take an active part in the digital school development and as such become producer of knowledge and ideas and not only become consumers in the jungle of technical applications that are implemented on a school level. Therefore, it might well be argued that in science teaching, paying more careful attention to how teachers and researchers work together in collaborative settings, offers one way of better valuing science teachers’ professional knowledge of practice. As such, an implication is that digital applications are not made “for” teachers but instead “with” and “by” teachers.

The society puts high demands om teachers’ knowledge and competencies to integrate digital technologies into their daily practices. Building on teachers’ own needs and concerns, this project addresses the challenge for teachers as a community to be better prepared for and meet the societal challenge that digitalization means for schools.

Across the field of science education, knowledge about the relation between teachers’ use of digital technology and how it might (or might not) promote students’ learning offers access to ideas of how to design and implement teacher professional development programs. This offers enhanced communication opportunities between schools and universities regarding school facilities and expectations of technology to improve teachers’ experiences with integrating technology into their learning and teaching. This pragmatic approach to research creates theory and interventions that serve school practice but also produces challenges for design-based researchers.

In the research literature relevant to open educational practices (OEP), the terms “students” or “learners” often refer to individuals engaging in formal study. This study aims to broaden the conception of learners to include those who engage with continuing professional development or professional learning. The study focussed on one intersection of OEP with equity pedagogy for these learners.

Guided by transformative approaches to knowledge, the research is qualitative and draws upon nine focus group interviews about multicultural education professional learning needs conducted in November 2019 and July 2020 with 74 early years educators and staff. Data were analysed with theoretical thematic analysis to provide a rich overall description of the data set.

Early years educators and teachers aim to centre equity pedagogy in their practices but are constrained by a lack of opportunity to engage in professional development, and fragmented approaches to professional learning, issues which may potentially be addressed through OEP.

This paper extends understandings of OEP as a means of helping learners, broadly interpreted, to promote equity pedagogy. Specifically, it highlights the promise of OEP for addressing early years educators’ professional development and learning about reconciliation and multicultural education.