Conceptualising teacher learning in terms of participation in a teacher learning community is a relatively new phenomenon in South Africa. This study explores the usefulness of applying a social practice theory of learning to a community of novice Economic and Management Sciences teacher learners involved in the Teaching Economics and Management Sciences (TEMS) teacher development project. It examines the influence of contextual constraints, teachers' biographies and professional career trajectories on teachers' ability to participate in a learning community. By drawing on Wenger's theory of learning in a community of practice and Wenger et al's stages of community development framework, it also illuminates and theorises the potential that a community of practice framework has for teacher development. Wenger's framework offered important insights that informed and shaped the development of the TEMS programme. It also provided a useful tool for analysing teacher learning as constituting four components, namely, meaning, practice, identity and community. The complex relationship that exists between these different components of learning is examined. The study offers a critique of the feasibility and appropriateness of using Wenger's framework for analysing a teacher learning community. Methodologically, the tenets of symbolic interactionist ethnography were employed in the collection of data for this study. An exposition of the complexity and challenge of adopting the dual role of researcher as observer and participant is presented. An analysis is also provided of the methodological challenge of gaining access and acceptance in a South African education research context. The study examines how the essential tension in teacher professional development, namely, that of curriculum development and deepening subject matter knowledge is managed in a teacher learning community of novice Economic and Management Sciences teachers. It reveals the potential that a learning community framework has for teacher learning through different levels of participation, and points to the importance of the input of an outside expert, particularly during the early stages of development of a community of teacher learners who lack subject content knowledge. It argues that teacher learning communities present a fruitful and viable alternative to the current 'deficit' models of teacher development that typify the present South African teacher development scenario, as teacher learning communities suggest a conceptual reorientation of the discourse on teacher development. / Theses (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.

Post 1994, the vision of the South African education policy terrain is to transform schools into more effective places of teaching and learning. To achieve this vision, policy suggests a shift in management practices from traditional autocratic headship to more participatory leadership practices, including the leadership of teachers. Theorizing from a distributed leadership perspective, the aim of this study was to explore the concept of teacher leadership and the challenges that are faced by post level one teachers as they operate as leaders in their schools in the South African context. The study sought to investigate how the concept of teacher leadership was understood, how post level one teachers lead in their schools and what challenges to teacher leadership are in schools. The study was conducted in one rural and one semi-urban primary school and it was qualitative in nature. A case study methodology was suitable for this study since it was aimed at gaining teachers understanding and perceptions of teacher leadership. Different methods of collecting data were used and these included interviews, questionnaires, and document analysis. Data were analyzed thematically using Grant’s (2008) model of teacher leadership. The findings indicated that teacher leadership as a concept was still new to certain teachers, even though research on the topic in the South African context is increasing. Some teachers did not think of the roles they played in a school as teacher leadership. The findings further indicated that teacher leadership was experienced differently across the two schools with teacher leadership in the rural school being more restricted than the teacher leadership in the semi-urban school, where it was more emergent. In the rural school, leadership could, at best, be described as authorized distributed leadership while in the semi-urban school, leadership could be described as dispersed distributed leadership. In addition, the findings showed that the major barrier to teacher leadership in the rural school was resistance from the School Management Team while in the semi-urban school the major barrier to teacher leadership was a lack of time. A further barrier to teacher leadership in both schools was teachers themselves who were lazy and did not want to take on additional leadership tasks. The study also found that the major enhancing factor to teacher leadership, particularly in the semi-urban school, was a collaborative school culture where teachers trusted each other and worked together in professional learning communities. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.

It is commonly observed that elementary and secondary teachers often work in isolation and that providing opportunities for teachers to work together helps improve student outcomes. But it can be difficult to find time for teacher collaboration, whether in professional learning communities, grade-level teams, or other collaborative groups. Given the extensive role of collective bargaining agreements in governing teachers’ hours and working conditions, this study explores the role of collective bargaining in creating time for teacher collaboration. Using legal and content analyses, the study examines scope-of-bargaining statutes in each state to determine the extent to which district and union leaders are required to bargain over teacher time. It also uses the content-analysis methodology to review how collective bargaining agreements from thirty-one of the nation’s largest school districts restrict or promote teacher time for collaboration. The study concludes that collective bargaining plays a considerable role in teacher collaboration time. Not only do most states have statutes that require stakeholders to bargain to create opportunities for collaboration time, the resulting collective bargaining agreements directly and indirectly affect time for collaboration. These findings establish that in almost all states where collective bargaining is required, school officials and teachers cannot advance teacher collaboration without the assistance of collective bargaining. Moreover, success in creating collaboration time depends largely on how the collective bargaining agreements restrict or promote that time. In light of these findings, the study recommends that local leaders and state policymakers take steps to promote teacher collaboration through collective bargaining by (1) prioritizing and reducing teacher workload; (2) removing teacher duty-hour limits; (3) expanding noninstructional time, including through additional teacher-collaboration set-asides; and (4) involving school leadership in determining how noninstructional time is used.

Collaboration between general and special education teachers is essential for students with disabilities to have access to general education curriculum and instruction, and improved outcomes in school. The Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), and No Child Left Behind Legislation, include mandates that increase demands for collaboration. However, many general and special education teachers report not feeling prepared to step outside traditional roles to collaborate to meet the needs of this population. Collaboration is also a strong element of teaching and special education standards for teacher preparation. Yet, research shows many teacher education programs lack coursework and field experiences that focus on collaboration. The purpose of this study was to explore experiences special education teacher candidates had in collaboration with general education teachers during student teacher field placements. The research questions include: (a) To what extent are special education student teachers expected to collaborate with general education teachers during field placements; and (b) How are perspectives on collaboration with general education teachers different between special education student teachers and their mentor teachers? The study used qualitative multiple-case study design and content analysis. Data were collected across three different school contexts (elementary, middle school, and high school) in which special education candidates were placed for student teaching. Participants included special education student teachers and their mentor teachers from each setting. Data sources included interviews, a survey of collaborative practices, text analysis of teacher work samples, and field-placement evaluations. Results of the study show many collaborative practices occur across different special education settings to various extents, and special education candidates have opportunities to learn about perspectives on collaboration and collaborative practices with general education teachers from mentor teachers. However, the standards-based student teaching performance measures did not guide or document the learning and experiences of special education student teachers in relation to collaboration with general education teachers. Recommendations are made for adding guidelines and performance measures in teacher education programs that prepare special education teacher candidates for collaborative roles in schools.

During the past 50 years, the landscape of education shifted from a rank order model to a system where all students are expected to achieve at a minimum level. This led to reforms in the way schools operate and teachers teach. One change to teaching is the use of data to inform instructional practices and student groupings. The need for teachers to increase their data use and change their instruction has prompted the need for professional development practices to be more effective. Coaching has been shown to be an effective professional development strategy to help teachers transfer new skills into their practice. This mixed-methods study examined one urban school district's two-year attempt to implement a data informed decision-making model of instruction in 20 schools through the use of instructional coaches. The study used two data sets - archival literacy benchmark scores and coach surveys - to identify a purposive selection of interview participants. The interviews were conducted to determine what structures and factors increased the implementation of the data informed decision-making initiative. Findings indicate professional development and leadership structures were needed for successful implementation of the data initiative. Results of this study showed the factors of trust, focus, coach-principal relationship, and assessment literacy contributed to the coaches' ability to implement the data initiative successfully.

Schools face a great challenge in recruiting and retaining quality teachers, given the documented importance of, variability in, and difficulty observing and predicting teacher quality. One option schools have is to identify what more effective teachers do and use that information to train less effective teachers to get better. Unfortunately, there is little empirical support for much traditional teacher training, as measured by gains in student test scores. Models of collaborative, team-based learning – such as Professional Learning Communities and Japanese lesson study – have been widely touted, and there is some evidence that they may be effective in certain contexts. Economic theory suggests this could be because of peer monitoring, peer pressure, specialization, knowledge-sharing, or market failure in pre-service training, particularly if learning to teach is primarily experiential. However, not all collaboration is good due to concerns about free-riding and substituting for more productive individual activity, so unbridled enthusiasm for collaborative professional development may need to be tempered. This dissertation examines the effectiveness of a specific form of teacher collaboration in the form of inquiry teams, groups of teachers and administrators jointly engaged in action research projects with the aim of uncovering innovative instructional strategies and sharing effective approaches. It takes advantage of the phase-in of teams, eventually to all teachers in a large, urban school district in the northeastern United States from 2007-2010 to estimate the results of three natural experiments using difference-in-differences and instrumental variables approaches. The effects of teamwork on teacher value-added, teacher retention, and student test scores are small and sensitive to year, specification, and outcome, although results are mostly positive and occasionally statistically significant, suggesting that overall effects are potentially positive but modest at best. Further examination of heterogeneity and four qualitative case studies of teams suggest that small average effects mask considerable differences in team processes, and that under certain conditions, inquiry team work may be far more effective. A cost analysis reveals that, although it is costly to do inquiry work well, given the low-intensity of average treatment and the large number of students affected, the benefits of inquiry work could exceed the costs if the policy were more targeted. Overall, the policy recommendation is to temper unqualified enthusiasm about teacher collaboration, as without appropriate structures and supports it has little measurable effect on the outcomes examined here. As a policy lever, a universal mandate to participate on collaborative inquiry teams is unlikely to be effective or pass a cost-benefit test. Nonetheless, smaller-scale, higher intensity forms of collaboration that allow for more active leadership support and participation may be more promising, and more cost-effective than alternative forms of professional development, particularly for some sub-groups of teachers such as those in their first year of teaching.

After the comparison and contrast of the four schools, it is propounded that in the establishment and developing process of a professional learning community, its core, teachers' collaborative culture, also displays a developmental process from individualism and comfortable collaboration to organizationally induced collegiality and interdependent collegiality. A supportive system is the guarantee of the teachers' collaborative culture; and the key to facilitate the birth of this culture as well as the building of a professional learning community lies on the principals' leadership style which put attention both on the management strategies and the leading strategies. / Based on the result revealed from the questionnaire survey and data of the case studies, it is found that professional learning community, as an introduced concept from the west, has its local significance in primary schools in the three cities of mainland China, supporting the theoretical structure built by the following four professional learning community dimensions---Shared decision making; Shared sense of purpose and focus on student learning; collaborative activity and deprivatized practice; Staff support and cooperation. The features of the abovementioned dimensions also possess their local flavor: degree of the shared decision making is relatively low and the teachers rarely participate in the financial and personnel decision-making, but own more authority within their professional field; secondly, students' exam scores are more emphasized in the aspect of the focus on student learning, but this varies from the schools according to its realization of professional learning community; thirdly, as for collaborative activity and deprivatized practice, collaboration among teaching practice are bolstered by the traditional "teaching research system", nevertheless there is a gap between the system and the actual outcome of the activities; lastly, the uniform teaching research system, to some extent, provides teachers' cooperation with much support, but is overweighed by the collaborative culture among teachers. / Mixed methods are adopted in this research, in which the questionnaires are delivered in three cities (including Shanghai) of mainland China in order to know the features and the realization of professional learning community in primary schools in Shanghai. It is then followed a purposeful sampling on the basis of the data analysis from the questionnaires, and four schools will be chosen out as the cases to probe into the relationship between professional learning community and teacher development. The major methods for the data collection include questionnaire survey, in-depth interview, participant observation and document collection. / The professional learning community being the one side, the teachers' development is interactively on the other, and the key platform for their interaction is teacher development activities. The contents of teacher development activities vary in different schools of different realization of professional learning community, and also diverse in the interaction between professional learning community and teachers' teacher development. Meanwhile, the second round curriculum reform in Shanghai being the common backdrop, it on one hand offers three platforms to the interaction between professional learning community and teacher development, and on the other hand is itself affected by this interaction. Especially under the pressure of "moderate empowerment and high responsibility" in the second round curriculum reform, teachers are supported by professional learning community in terms of empowerment and responsibility, and are also aided to seek for their professional identities, which leads to the achievement of teachers' real proactive professional development. / With the advent of a transitional era, the field of education is likewise undergoing a global reform. However, in retrospect of the educational reforms launched by various countries in the past thirty years, the aspect of class teaching is seldom touched upon. The academia therefore gives increasing emphasis on teachers as well as teachers' communities, and the concept of professional learning community thus comes into being. In the recent years, the studies on professional learning community have been proliferated in the west, and are gradually introduced into our country, but the related empirical studies in China still remain a virgin land. / 宋萑. / Adviser: Lee Chi Kin. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-08, Section: A, page: 3113. / Thesis (doctoral)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 276-302). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / School code: 1307. / Song Huan.

The purpose of this study was to explore how teacher learning happened informally at the workplace. Another aim was to describe the ways in which informal learning contributes to teacher development. The study also endeavoured to establish if the school supported or hindered informal learning. The method of case study was used to understand how both novice and experienced teachers learn informally in a secondary school. The study examined five teachers’ informal learning experiences in the school by drawing on accounts of the individual teachers’ perceptions and reflections documented in journals, photographs and interviews. The journal entries were used to write narratives which outlined how teachers learnt informally in the workplace. Teachers were asked to take photographs of the places in which they learnt informally. The interviews awarded teachers the opportunity to talk about the photographs they chose to capture. The study found that teachers engage in various forms of informal learning opportunities at school. These opportunities were both planned and unplanned. The research indicated that informal learning is situated. Some of the learning opportunities included being part of a learning community, learning by interacting with colleagues in informal chats and attending meetings. In these instances it was found that teachers learnt with and from others, which is socially. This illustrates collaborative learning in the school. Teachers also engaged in individual learning. It was discovered that the school must provide opportunities for teachers to engage in informal learning. The study considered the various opportunities that existed in the school for teachers to develop and found that such opportunities contributed towards extending teacher knowledge and development. The study found that teachers in the study were willing to take the initiative to seek the learning they thought they required. The study recommends that informal learning be recognised as an authentic form of teacher learning and development in schools. Further, schools must become sites of learning for teachers by creating, encouraging and sustaining learning opportunities. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.

The aim of this research is to understand the views of teachers regarding professionalism and leadership. As a researcher, I also wanted to investigate whether teachers were given opportunities to lead within a professional capacity in their schools and to examine the factors that promote the development of these teacher leaders as professionals as well as those factors that hinder such development. In view of the recent public servants strike in 2007 and 2010, teachers have been brought under the spotlight in a very negative manner. The teaching profession has been viewed with scrutiny ever since and most if not all teachers were being painted with the same brush of, lack of integrity and respect. The purpose of the study was to examine how teacher leaders performed leadership roles and also to establish whether such roles were within professional parameters or not. There was a need to understand how teacher leaders understood the term professionalism as well as to ascertain what factors promoted and hindered the development of teacher leaders as professionals. The study was conducted within a qualitative, interpretive paradigm and took the form of a case study of five educators, who were two Heads of Department and three post level one teachers’ in an urban primary school in KwaZulu-Natal. Data collection techniques included semi – structured individual interviews, a focus group interview, questionnaires and observation. Data were analyzed using thematic content analysis. The findings of the study revealed that although teachers were actively engaging in leadership roles, very little was done to develop these teachers as professionals. This study acknowledges that management members of schools play a crucial role in the development of teacher leaders as professionals by creating opportunities for this professional development. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.