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The purpose of this article is to explore lesson and learning study as a form of ongoing teacher training which allows teachers the opportunity to reconstruct their practical thinking.

This document begins with a theoretical introduction in which the author explains the nature and dimensions of practical thinking, its importance for the professional development of teachers, followed by the lesson studies themselves, outlining the case of a teacher involved in a research group based on this type of ongoing training.

With the subtle differences and changes proposed for the Spanish context, lesson studies can be a valuable tool in terms of encouraging reflection and the critical questioning of personal values, beliefs and assumptions about teaching, whilst also enabling the reconstruction of teachers’ practical knowledge, in particular their hidden beliefs, habits and emotions.

This article offers a new approach for lesson studies as a method of training which can improve practice through the reconstruction of the practical thinking of those involved.

The purpose of this paper is to identify those organizational and personal elements that enable not-for-profit organizations (NPOs) to generate and transfer knowledge. NPOs are under pressure to use their financial and human resources efficiently, and to improve their activities and services constantly. Knowledge management as a strategy would ensure NPOs’ sustainability and rapid adaptation to dynamic environments.

A qualitative study based on interviews, documents and questionnaires was conducted in 28 Mexican NPOs.

Three main findings were identified: First, Mexican NPOs generate knowledge through courses and seminars based on volunteers’ personal motivation and organizational culture. Second, informal communication media are widely utilized to transfer organizational knowledge. Third, personal commitment to the organization’s mission and trust in their colleagues’ social actions are crucial for knowledge transfer effectiveness, rather than organizational elements.

Results scope of this study is limited to the NPOs under study. The findings expose some highlights for knowledge management process in NPOs in Mexico which would be tested in further research.

Contrary to knowledge management in profit organizations, NPOs must recognize that personal motivation, commitment and trust in organization’s mission and social actions are crucial rather than organizational culture and top management support.

NPOs must convert their tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge, which allows NPOs to be transparent and effective, and to have access to more funding opportunities and to replicate their best practices throughout the organization.

There are only few studies of knowledge management processes in NPOs. Some considerations have to be done with respect to personal motivation, commitment and trust, as well as organizational elements.

This paper aims to investigate how online communities of practice facilitate the embedding of personal professional knowledge in a complex online environment.

This research consisted of exploratory, interpretivist case research, using qualitative methods. Forty‐one individuals from five online communities in a national professional development programme were interviewed. Additional data were drawn from diverse online records. Data were coded via text analysis. A wiki was used for participant feedback.

Embedding of new knowledge was facilitated by individuals' crossings between different engagement spaces – communication and sense‐making contexts. Community members repeatedly crossed between online and offline, visible and invisible, formal and informal, and reflective and active engagement spaces as they sought to meet diverse needs. As they did this, they had to continually recontextualise knowledge, adapting, varying and personalising it to fit the function, genre and conventions of each engagement space. This promoted the embedding of professional knowledge. The complex online environment in which they operated can be seen as providing a situation of enhanced polycontextuality, within which multiple boundary crossings facilitated strong personalisation. At the community level, knowledge convergence was fostered by the recurrence of dominant, powerful mnemonic themes.

An opportunity exists to investigate the applicability of these findings in other online professional contexts.

The paper extends the concept of boundary crossing to crossings in a polycontextual online environment. It updates literature on communities of practice by outlining the dynamics of a complex online community system. It provides an explanation for how personal knowledge evolves to fit emerging trends and considers how information systems can support deep knowledge transfer.

This paper aims to examine employees' conceptions of the meaning of experience in job‐competence and its development in workplace context. The aim is to bring out the variety of conceptions related to experience, competence and workplace learning.

The paper is based on interview data from six Finnish small and medium sized enterprises. The data were collected as a part of a larger European Union research project, Working Life Changes and Training of Older Workers (WORKTOW) during spring 1999. The approach chosen for the analysis presented in this paper was phenomenography.

The findings in the paper show the importance accorded to experience in competence and in workplace learning. The employees valued work experience as the main source of their competence. They also developed their competence mainly through learning at work. The role of social participation in work communities and learning through experiences was emphasized.

The paper shows that differentiating employees' conceptions paves a way to more specific perspectives on the development and utilisation of experience‐based competence in work communities and organisations.

In this paper the findings are discussed in the light of construction and development of older workers' job‐competence in working life. It is argued that experience serves several kinds of purposes in workplace learning also among experienced workers.

This paper draws on research which began in 2006 with students in a graduate course on rural education. Its purpose was to find out what graduate students saw as current issues of rural education, how that compared to the literature, and what they thought supporting agencies such as government and universities needed to be doing to advance rural education. This paper focuses on presenting the findings and initiating a dialogue that leads to further conceptual understanding of ruralness.

The inquiry design and implementation is grounded in theories of constructivism and personal practical knowledge.

Some of the more common issues for participants in the study such as, curriculum delivery; bussing; teacher training; insecurity in teacher allocations; and threats of consolidation, are synonymous with the literature. The data also points to the need for research in rural schools and rural communities which is set within a rural‐based theoretical framework.

The study is conducted within the context of one Canadian province using participants from one specific setting. Therefore, the findings represent a localized instance of both curriculum research and literature review.

The study may serve to illuminate issues which can be expanded and become more global in its practicality.

The paper provides an example of curriculum research that is founded on the work and learning experiences of students and their instructor. This knowledge can play a significant role in determining future curriculum design; curriculum implementation; teacher training, recruitment, and retention while enhancing community development in rural areas.

Against a British policy backdrop, which places an ever- increasing emphasis on workplace learning in pre-service professional programmes, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the contribution of the mentor to professional knowledge development in nursing, paramedicine, social work and teaching.

Taking the form of a literature review, it explores the influence of policy, professional and theoretical conceptualisations of the mentor role, and structural factors influencing the mentor’s contribution to professional knowledge.

Where there are clearly delineated policy obligations for the mentor to “teach”, mentors are more likely to make connections between theoretical and practical knowledge. When this responsibility is absent or informal, they are inclined to attend to the development of contextual knowledge with a consequent disconnect between theory and practice. In all four professions, mentors face significant challenges, especially with regard to the conflict between supporting and assessor roles, and the need to attend to heavy contractual workloads, performance targets and mentoring roles in tandem.

The authors argue first for the need for more attention to the pedagogy of mentoring, and second for structural changes to workload allocations, career progression and mentoring education. In order to develop more coherent and interconnected professional knowledge between different domains, and the reconciliation of different perspectives, it would be useful to underpin mentoring pedagogy with Bhabba’s notion of “third space”.

The paper makes a contribution to the field since it considers new obligations incumbent on mentors to assist mentees in reconciling theoretical and practical knowledge by the consequence of policy and also takes a multi-professional perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal how the meanings of the current national curriculum reform in China changed in its transmission from the outside authoritative mandate to the local school practice through a case study of a lesson study on a reform practice called the “thematic teaching” in the Chinese language course.

By a longitudinal study of the case for more than two months in a primary school in Beijing, China, the authors of this paper followed all the steps of the lesson study cycle conducted by all the Chinese language teachers in the school. Observations, interviews and document analysis were employed to capture the teachers’ thoughts, actions and especially group interactions in trying to understand and implement this new reform practice.

The study found that due to the marked differences between the professional reform discourse and the teachers’ native discourse, the meanings of the reform tended to look alien to school teachers. In order to make meanings out of the reform, the teachers in this lesson study resorted to their own native discourse to understand the reform. Such strategies as “de-contextualization” and “re-contextualization” were found in the teachers’ joint efforts to reconstruct and reenact the reform.

This research points to the importance of school teachers’ own belief system in teaching as revealed by their native discourse. Only by finding an adequate link between the outside reform discourse and the teachers’ native discourse, can the national curriculum reform truly take hold in the school.

While the intended outcomes of work-integrated learning (WIL) are well documented, significant challenges arise when the stakeholders have different understandings and expectations. The purpose of this paper is to examine the alignment of stakeholder views on the defining features of cooperative education as a model of WIL.

An interpretive case-study methodology, incorporating questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, was used to determine the views of students, workplace supervisors and university academic supervisors involved in a sport cooperative education program.

Students, workplace supervisors and academic supervisors shared a perception that the students’ development of employability skills and their acquisition of experience in industry were the primary intended outcomes. As an associated benefit, students would be work-ready. Ideally, cooperative education experiences should also provide opportunities for students to learn to integrate theory and practice, further develop their personal and professional identities, and learn to navigate the important ethical aspects of being a professional.

While the employability emphasis in the findings aligns well with government agendas, graduates need to be prepared for complex and dynamic workplaces, and to be future ready for careers that are yet to exist. WIL curricula need to explicitly address this expanded agenda, which in turn needs to be communicated clearly to all stakeholders.

This paper challenges stakeholders in WIL to move beyond a focus on preparing students for the “now” and to reconsider the learning outcomes that should be imperative for university education in the twenty-first century.

Effective public mental health policy and practice call for a trained workforce that is competent in mental health promotion and delivering on improved mental health. Systematic information on what competencies are needed for mental health promotion practice in the health sector is lacking. The purpose of this paper is to investigate these competencies for mental health promotion.

A Delphi survey was carried out to facilitate a consensus-building process on development of the competencies. Professionals (n=32) working in mental health and mental health promotion took part in the survey. The experts were asked their professional views on the needed competencies as well as to rank the importance of the competencies. Two questionnaire rounds were carried out in order to reach consensus.

In total, 16 main competencies and 56 subcompetencies were identified through the Delphi survey. The competencies were divided into three category domains: theoretical knowledge, practical skills and attitudes and values each category representing an important aspect of mental health promotion competency.

The competencies provide a resource for workforce development, as they illustrate what theoretical knowledge, practical skills and attitudes and values are required. They provide an instrument to enhance education and training programmes in mental health promotion contributing to a more skilled workforce and improved quality of practice as well.

A strong consensus was reached within the participating experts, them viewing all competencies as important. The identified competencies highlight the great variety of different competencies and competency areas that are needed for effective mental health promotion practice in the health sector.

Credit card bankruptcies in Malaysia trebled from 2006 to 2007 and study loan defaults increased by 103 percent in the same period. In response to this, the paper aims to investigate the level of general financial and product awareness among young adults. The two research questions addressed are: how do demographic factors (age, gender and education level) influence the general financial awareness, and whether undertaking a business degree promotes greater financial and product awareness amongst youth today.

A survey method was employed using a sample of 280 students at a private higher education institution in Subang Jaya, Malaysia. The study also develops valid and reliable scales for general financial awareness and financial product awareness. Hypothesis testing was conducted using multivariate analysis of covariance.

The findings of the study revealed that the level of education and majors influence general and financial product awareness among youths. Also, males were found to have higher levels of financial awareness compared to females.

Future research is required to investigate whether family background has an impact on personal finance knowledge.

By identifying the specific areas where financial product awareness may be lacking, the paper may assist educators, regulators and financial institutions to design financial planning courses in helping youths to achieve greater financial freedom and be better equipped for retirement.

This paper also develops reliable and valid measurement scales for both general and financial product awareness which were not evident in previous studies. The paper's findings may prompt the educational institution and government authorities to be concerted in promoting financial planning awareness nationwide.