Australian policy contexts are promoting school transformation through teacher learning and the development of schools as professional learning communities. However, Australian practitioners have very limited contextualised research to guide their efforts in response to these policies. The researcher’s involvement in a school revitalisation process provided the impetus for this research study that investigates the practitioner experience of a developing professional learning community at RI College (pseudonym for a large independent girls’ school in Brisbane). This study endeavours to gain a more informed and sophisticated understanding of developing a professional learning community with the intention of ‘living’ this vision of RI College as a professional learning community. Praxis-oriented research questions focus on the practitioner conceptualisation of their school as a developing professional community and their experience of supporting/hindering strategies and structures. The study gives voice to this practitioner experience through the emerging participatory/co-operative research paradigm, an epistemology of participative inquiry, a research methodology of co-operative inquiry and mixed methods data collection strategies. Incorporating ten practitioner inquiries over two years, recursive cycles of action/reflection engaged practitioners as co-researchers in the collaborative reflective processes of a professional learning community while generating knowledge about the conceptualisation and supporting/hindering influences on its development. The outcomes of these first-person and second-person inquiries, together with a researcher devised online survey of teachers, were both informative and transformative in nature and led to the development of the researcher’s theoretical perspectives in response to the study’s research questions. As outcomes of co-operative inquiry, these theoretical perspectives inform the researcher’s future actions and offer insights into existing propositional knowledge in the field. Engagement in this practitioner inquiry research has had significant transformative outcomes for the co-researchers and has demonstrated the power of collaborative inquiry in promoting collective and individual professional learning and personal growth.

When a school community decides to implement innovative curricula, the responsibility for leadership of the associated professional learning processes lies with the principal. The onus is on principals to be leader learners. They adapt their leadership style to the context of the school. They encourage learning as a future-oriented, organisation-wide process. They encourage deep learning, and double-loop learning, and they nurture a culture of collaborative learning. They provide practical support for teacher leadership and teacher learning, and they understand that teachers have differing needs for support during a period of significant curriculum change. The research methodology used for this study involved a multiple case study design. Principals and staff from three Queensland state schools who participated in the trial of innovative curricula provided the data for the three case studies. The data collection at three schools related to the processes of professional learning at each site. Interviews conducted with the participants at each school, and observation of meetings and school documentation, provided the researcher with the data to develop a framework for principals who are interested in creating a professional learning community. Data collected from the schools generally supported the findings of the theorists. However, analysis of the data provided more detailed information than is currently available in the literature to inform the establishment of professional learning processes. Analysis of the data indicated that professional learning can be classified according to four themes: personal learning, leadership-related learning, learning related to innovation, and learning related to processes that support a collaborative culture. The findings from the literature review and the findings from the case studies were used to construct a framework for professional learning for principals who wish to create a learning organisation. The framework provides a foundation for professional learning programs for principals, and could be used by a range of people or groups, including district office personnel, professional associations, and networks of principals and aspiring leaders.

This study is a response to shifts in literacy education produced by the new affordances of multimodal texts and changing social dynamics as a consequence of an increasingly digitised, networked communications environment. Acknowledging the powerful influence of the teacher on student outcomes, the study involved intervention in teacher professional learning as a means for influencing print based literacy pedagogy to incorporate multimodality literacy practices. This study is a case study of the professional learning of four teachers of primary school students over the course of eight months in a workplace based research project instigated by the researcher in her role reviewing early years literacy policy, programs and resources within the Department of Education, Victoria. Professional learning interventions deployed within a participatory action research methodology were found to be efficacious in involving case study teachers as researchers of their own practice and in enhancing teachers' professionalism in the operationalisation of multiliteracies. They also had the effect of impacting on professional knowledge, practice and identity. The study indicates that schemas emanating from the New London Group's multiliteracies theory acted as stimuli for expanding teacher repertoires of multimodality pedagogies, thereby addressing disjunctures between digitised multimodal literacy and the existing print based literacy pedagogical knowledge. The deployment of a 'multimodal schema' influenced teachers to expand the modes of meaning taught as literacy meaning-making resources. Deployment of a 'pedagogical knowledge processes schema' influenced teachers' reflective practices resulting in more knowing and purposeful pedagogical practices. Used as an analytical tool, a 'dimensions of meaning schema' also illustrated patterns in teachers' choices, revealing an arbitrary character in the development of a metalanguage for different modes of meaning making. Recommendations arising from the study addressed the areas of educational consultancy; educational filming; literacy policy development; multimodality; pedagogical knowledge processes; and participatory action research methodology. Future research agendas indicated by the findings were presented.

This dissertation is concerned with exploring the context of a rural professional learning community and the interactions between the context and participants, both teachers and facilitators. An interpretive, qualitative, instrumental case study, the format of data collection and analysis used an instrumental case study approach and interviews, classroom observations, field notes, and artifacts. Participants included four teachers across three different rural locales and two facilitators. Data on the six study participants was collected over the 2013-2014 school year. Findings from this study add to research on the understudied rural context as well as work of in-service educators and teacher educators working within and across these communities. First, this study elucidates nine components of the rural context: students, standards, and student learning needs; teachers and teacher learning needs; practices, curriculum instruction, assessment, and the learning environment; organizational culture; organizational structures and leadership; national, state, and local policies; resources; history of professional development; and parents and community. Additionally, this study identifies new roles for professional development facilitators and explores classroom the teaching practices in rural science classrooms. Finally, this dissertation highlights the importance of rural communities on the interactions of facilitators and participants who work in a rural context. Attention to the roles and interactions between facilitators, teachers and the rural context is of utmost importance towards understanding and ultimately improving professional development experiences for these predominantly isolated educators. This work has the potential to directly impact current and future STEM students and ultimately the STEM workforce by improving professional development for science educators and ultimately science students. Therefore, attention to who is working in and around these communities as well as what is happening within the context of the professional development of rural educations is of particular interest for all those working to improve science education. / text

The purpose of this study has been to provide a rich description of the role of the literacy leader in two primary schools. Through this study I was seeking to identify what the role of the literacy leader is and how this role is enacted. The role has been described from the perspectives of the literacy leader, a principal and five members of two school’s teaching staff. The desire to better understand the role of the literacy leader is important to those in the role and those they interact with. This is particularly so for those in my position as a professional developer, working alongside both a school and its literacy leader as they undertake in-depth literacy professional development. Literacy leaders have assumed greater responsibilities within schools since the 1999 Literacy Taskforce report which suggested a range of initiatives to better support literacy learners in New Zealand. Since this report there has been a governmental priority on literacy as a foundation learning area. Interest in literacy success for all stems from both international and national assessment knowledge. This information highlights the strength of New Zealand students in literacy but also identifies a group of students who do not perform well and continue to underachieve in literacy into adulthood. This underachievement limits the opportunities they have as adults for employment and participation in society. There has been no formalised role description for literacy leaders or how they might enact this role. The purpose of this study therefore has been to identify the role and how it is enacted. The literacy leader role has been analysed from multiple perspectives. Participant observation and in-depth interviewing have provided a rich picture of the role and how it is enacted. It is from these insights that some clarity has been gained about the characteristics of the role, how it is interpreted by the participants and then enacted by the two leaders. The findings indicate the role identified by those participating in this study and the reality of how it is enacted, are closely matched. The tasks of a literacy leader are complex and their dual role of classroom teacher and literacy leader adds to this complexity as they manage both positions simultaneously. This study identified that being a literacy leader requires a central focus on improved student achievement. It requires literacy leaders to provide strong leadership in literacy professional development/learning. This study also suggests that literacy leaders are seen as learning partners during the in-depth literacy professional development/learning focus where all involved are learners. The final role they play is in supporting the development of a collaborative professional learning community where all of the learning occurs. It raises issues and questions for those who interact with the literacy leader both within the school and those outside the school in how they can support them in this role. It also surfaces the need for schools and professional developers to address how the structures they are operating within can be reorganised to afford the time needed to be effective in this role. Finally when schools, advisers and Ministry of Education enter into a partnership of learning openly demonstrating that each will learn from the other, then capacity is built across all levels of the education system in meeting the goals of improved student outcomes.

The New Zealand Government recognises the importance of supporting all students in their learning to assist them to reach their full potential. This recognition is inclusive of gifted and talented students. Furthermore, boards of trustees, through their principal and staff, are required under the National Administration Guidelines, to demonstrate how they are catering for gifted and talented students. Notwithstanding this requirement, The Education Review Office (2008) report entitled Schools’ Provision for Gifted and Talented Students, confirms that a major challenge for school leadership is sustaining momentum of gifted and talented provisions and programmes. Despite this mandated intent, what happens in practice at the school level remains problematic. Teachers and schools welcomed the Talent Development Initiative (TDI), a Ministry of Education (MOE) Initiative, as it held some promise for developments in gifted and talented education. The first round of the initiative ran between 2003 and 2005 and the second from 2006 to 2008. Funding to support innovation and special developments in gifted education has been provided to 38 programmes nationwide. This initiative serviced some schools and educational bodies but a large number of others were left without an extra layer of support beyond their schools’ leadership actions. This study focuses on the school level, in particular teachers who are given additional responsibility, namely those with a coordination role. Moreover, my thesis is about how work to meet the needs of gifted and talented students can be sustained in schools to ensure the gifted and talented ‘torch’ can continue to ‘burn brightly’ over time. To gain an understanding of coordinators’ insights on what it takes to overcome the problem of sustaining provisions and programmes, this study adopts a qualitative, case study approach. I selected a purposive sample of six teachers with experience working in a gifted and talented coordinator role. The main source of data collection was individual semi-structured interviews (refer to Appendix A). I asked them questions about their role and how provisions were made for gifted and talented students at their schools. Further questions were asked about the support they received for their roles, particularly professional learning and development to enhance their practice. My findings show the responses from participants highlighted the important connection between leadership and learning. Knowledge and passion to do their best for gifted and talented students, although important, was not sufficient. The leadership actions and support provided by others in their setting and beyond their setting were likewise needed. My analysis revealed a range of strategies was deemed necessary to support the leadership of learning in classrooms, specifically the need for dialogue amongst teachers about identification, planning and evaluating provisions and programmes. All too often these gifted and talented coordinators worked alone in their roles, in isolation from others, and at times without the support they needed. Thus the success or failure of provisions and programmes for gifted and talented students rested on their ongoing commitment and drive. My study includes recommendations for practice. These recommendations suggest that provisions for gifted and talented students must be integrated into curriculum delivery and learning areas and be part of schools’ cultures in order for them to take hold and be sustained over time. Furthermore, there is a need to develop clarity of these provisions through job descriptions and for schools to undertake regular if not annual reviews of written documentation to guide ongoing work in gifted and talented education.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2008. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on June 19, 2009) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of North Texas, Dec., 2008. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

There is an assumption that the ways in which teachers engage with policy are known, yet there is very little evidence to demonstrate how teachers engage with new policies and how this engagement patterns their approach to curriculum development (Kulinna, Brusseau, Cothran, & Tudor-Locke, 2012). Previous research has not clearly distinguished between teachers’ understanding of policy discourses and their subsequent enactment of curriculum. An opportunity to do so arose with the introduction in Scotland of a new curriculum. This new curriculum, Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), intended to provide a framework within which teachers would exercise professional judgment and engage in School Based Curriculum Development (SCBD). The Scottish Government determined the overarching policy for education and Local Authorities were responsible for overseeing the development of the curriculum. CfE intended to empower teachers by encouraging innovation with the proviso that key experiences deemed to be central for pupil learning were addressed. This study aimed to provide insights into the process of SBCD in physical education as teachers prepared for the first year of teaching CfE. The research questions therefore focused on developing an understanding of how the lead teachers tasked with designing the physical education curriculum, within a newly formed curriculum area of health and wellbeing, had engaged with policy and enacted the curriculum. In order to gain a fine-grained understanding of curriculum leaders’ experiences of SBCD, this study drew its sample from a single local authority. The study adopted a research design of repeated interviews with nine teachers who led curriculum development in their respective schools. Two related orders of SBCD as reported and experienced by curriculum leaders emerge from the study: first order SBCD pertains to the process of engagement with policy discourses; and second order refers to the activities associated with the enactment of the curriculum. The findings reported in this thesis showed that events organised by the local authority to support teachers led to the development of a professional learning community which facilitated teachers' active engagement in SBCD. This active engagement required careful tailoring of new developments to the constraints and affordances of their individual schools. First order SBCD was a complex process of engagement/active interpretation and reinterpretation of policy as teachers considered the context for SBCD. These processes led to teachers viewing the broad aims of CfE as a reinforcement of existing practice and curricula. Discourses of accountability appear to have had the most influence in curriculum design decisions, overshadowing the discourses of health and wellbeing within CfE. Teachers’ professional judgements were influenced by regimes of accountability at national and local levels which patterned but did not determine schools’ and teachers’ responses. This is because second order SBCD reflected teachers’ perceptions that a wholescale transformation of physical education was not required or possible within the constraints of their contexts. Curriculum leaders concentrated their efforts on covering the broad aims of CfE and the ‘experiences and outcomes’ outlined in CfE through focusing on their approach to teaching and learning the existing physical education curricula. Thus, they saw health and wellbeing as only one element of physical education rather than as the key focus of their enactment of the curriculum. Teachers’ collective efforts at curriculum enactment were therefore depicted as pragmatic innovation as this encapsulates their responses to policy discourses as they developed a curriculum that would in their view effectively address the broad aims and purposes of CfE while taking account of the constraints of their local context. In contrast to preceding work, a more nuanced account of teacher agency is revealed; teachers were neither wholly the subject of policy discourse nor were they wholly free agents. It follows that if policymakers are seeking transformational change in physical education and an orientation of the subject towards health and wellbeing, there is a need not only for mechanisms to support professional learning, but also for regimes of accountability such as the inspection framework to reflect the policy aims of health and wellbeing more closely.

When a school experiences a sudden change in demographics the impact can be difficult to comprehend. Effective professional development is essential in order for teachers to comprehend the changes and facilitate school improvement. This research explores the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors of middle class teachers in a town which experienced a dramatic shift in the demographics of students; many middle class students left the school and many students who qualified for free and reduced lunch moved in. The teachers who experienced this demographic shift struggled to understand the changes developing in their school. In order to develop knowledge of the frameworks of poverty, the teachers participated in a two-year professional development process known as professional learning communities (PLC). The first year of PLC training concentrated on the frameworks of poverty and the second year of the research study concentrated on improving instruction. Throughout the two-year case study, a triangulation approach of consisting of interviews, observations, and document analysis was utilized to determine what changes occurred in the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors of teachers. The findings of the research study determined that while the perception of poverty was relatively quick to change, developing a change in the attitudes and behaviors of teachers took much longer. Changes in teacher attitude and behavior to poverty were evident in the second year of the PLC process. The findings of the research study also determined that the PLC process provided a sustained format of professional development that allowed experienced teachers the opportunity to share experiences and learn from each other. Based on the findings of this study, a recommendation was made that the PLC process be considered as a viable professional development tool to train teachers on the impact and frameworks of poverty due to the detrimental impact poverty has on student achievement. Through a sustained effort in training, the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors of teachers can be changed to identify and meet the needs of students. It is the recommendation of this study that the PLC process be used to change how teachers teach students of poverty.