Next Generation Science Standards and the Framework for K-12 Science Education encourage teachers to not only change the content of their teaching, but also the way that they deliver it. In order to promote these modern teaching practices, professional development (PD) experiences for teachers need to develop new approaches that enhance the transfer of the PD context into the teachers’ classroom practice. In this research study, professional learning communities (PLCs), defined as collaborative groups of teachers who make their practice visible within their professional learning, are analyzed in a formally instituted series of teacher professional education offerings. Moreover, the setting included a professional learning community composed of teacher-facilitators who were actively engaged as facilitators of other PLCs. The goal of this design experiment was to both explore PLCs as PD models within science education as well as to begin to develop tools for PD that allow teachers to work from within the context of their own classroom. The sources of evidence used in this study included teacher and student produced artifacts and interviews, and written transcripts of the sessions were also examined. All data were primarily explored using methodology taken from grounded theory. This approach facilitated identification of emergent themes that particularly addressed some of the ways that researchers and teacher leaders can work together in the future to make certain that PD and the teachers’ classroom practices are more coherently connected. The following themes were identified: refining the focus of professional learning communities to allow for investigations of student learning in the classroom, especially with an eye towards supporting transparency of practice through artifacts, and the usefulness of cycles of inquiry as a construct for planning professional learning communities. Furthermore, it became clear that there is a need for explicit norms to frame the classroom around what constitutes acceptable explanations and justifications for productive classroom experiences. Among other findings, it is recommended that borrowing from and adapting the work of scholars in sociomathematical norms around the use of explanations can be the basis for a possible framework for improving future studies of teacher professional practice.

自上世纪80年代以来，全球范围内掀起了一系列的教育改革浪潮。学校变革能力的不足，成为各国教育改革面临的最大挑战。专业学习社群的出现，为整体提升学校改革能力带来了希望。而专业学习社群概念产生于西方，已有关于专业学习社群的研究也大多基于西方的教育情境，对于具有丰富教师合作实践的中国学校的研究很少。 / 本研究采用混合研究取向，探讨课程改革背景下中国大陆上海学校教师专业学习社群的特点及对教师发展的影响。首先对10所学校的教师进行个案研究，初步探索专业学习社群的特点与影响。在此基础上提出适用于上海情境的专业学习社群及其影响的概念框架，并据此形成专业学习社群特点及效果问卷，对31所学校进行调查，以验证和修订概念框架，并考察专业学习社群对教师发展的影响。研究进一步选取4所有代表性的学校进行深入的个案研究，探究专业学习社群影响教师发展的过程，并分析影响专业学习社群效果及发展水平的因素。问卷调查、深度访谈、非参与式观察和文件收集是获取资料的主要手段。 / 研究发现上海学校教师专业学习社群在个体层面表现出集体探究与分享、共享目标与责任两个特点，在组织层面表现出支持性领导、文化支持、组织结构、文化障碍、制度障碍五个特点，从而揭示出上海学校专业学习社群的独特特点。上海学校专业学习社群在整体上具有良好的发展水平，对教师发展产生了显著的促进作用，包括增强教师的教学效能，提高其对学生学习的承诺水平，并提升工作满意度。发展水平高和发展水平低的专业学习社群对教师发展的影响存在一定的差异，前者更能促进全体教师的发展与变革，并对教学与学生学习产生积极影响。这是因为高发展水平的专业学习社群与教师的日常教学实践紧密相关，并强调平等对话和民主交流，为教师提供了探究性的学习环境。 / 本研究通过上海学校教师专业学习社群实践回应了专业学习社群的情境依赖性，揭示出专业学习社群与教育改革之间的关系，并丰富了专业学习社群对教师发展影响过程与机制的研究。研究还阐述了不同于合作文化和硬造合作的系统、协调的专业学习社群发展取向，从而为理解专业学习社群提供了新的理论视角。基于研究所见，为进一步促进上海学校教师专业学习社群的发展，不仅要加强学校层面在领导、文化和结构上的支持，也要强化地区教育部门在政策制度、领导和资源上对专业学习社群的支持。 / Since the 1980s, a wave of educational reform has shown up on a global scale. One of the biggest challenges faced by various countries is the lack of schools’ reform capacity. The concept of professional learning community (PLC) seems promising for the improvement of schools’ comprehensive change capacity. While the idea of PLC originates in the western world and the majority of existing research has been based on western contexts, the concept and practice of PLCs in Chinese schools where there are rich experiences in terms of teacher collaboration have largely been ignored. / The present study is located within the context of curriculum reform in Mainland China. Adopting a mixed-method approach, this study examines the characteristics of teachers’ PLCs in schools in Shanghai and their impacts on teacher development. First, semi-structural interviews with teachers in ten schools were conducted to preliminarily explore the characteristics and influences of PLCs in Shanghai schools. Based on this, a conceptualization of PLC was initiated, and a questionnaire was developed accordingly. The author conducted a questionnaire survey of teachers in thirty-one schools to verify and modify the conceptualization of PLC and examine its impact on teacher development. After that, four representative schools were selected and in-depth case studies were implemented, to further investigate how PLCs impacted teacher development and what the key factors were in this process. Questionnaire survey, in-depth interview, non-participatory observation, and document collection were the main methods to collect data. / Results show that teachers’ PLCs in Shanghai schools could be conceptualized in individual level in terms of collective inquiry and sharing and shared goals and responsibility, and organizational level in terms of supportive leadership, cultural support, organizational structures, cultural barriers and institutional barriers, which indicates the unique characteristics of PLCs in Shanghai schools. Teachers’ PLCs in the schools in Shanghai performed well in general, and significantly improved teacher development, including their teaching effectiveness, commitment to student leaning, and job satisfaction. There were differences between high-level PLCs and low-level PLCs in terms of their influences on teacher development, i.e. the former had a greater role in promoting the whole teachers’ development and reform, and also their teaching practices and student learning. This is because high-level PLCs focused on teachers’ teaching practices and emphasized equal dialogue and democratic exchanges, which provided favorable environment for teachers’ inquiry and learning. / This study, by presenting the practices of PLCs in the schools in Shanghai, responded to the context specificity of PLCs, disclosed the relationship between PLCs and education reform, and enriched existing research on the influence process and mechanism of PLCs on teacher development. The study also identified a systematic and coordinated approach to develop PLCs, which was different from collaborative culture and contrived collegiaty and thus provided a new theoretical perspective for us to understand the concept of PLC. To further promote the practices of PLCs in the schools in Shanghai, support at both the school level such as leadership, culture and structure, and the district level such as policy, leadership and resources need to be strengthened. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / 張佳. / Parallel title from added title page. / Thesis (Ph.D.) Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2015. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 305-339). / Abstracts also in English. / Zhang Jia.

Charter schools are often characterized as professional learning communities (PLCs). However, researchers have noted the importance of self-reflection of school staff related to their role as a PLC because perceptions can influence the effectiveness of achieving the full implementation of a PLC. The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore the perceptions of teachers and administrators at a large New York school district's 2 charter schools concerning their school site as a learning community. This study was grounded in social constructivist leadership theory in order to analyze a professional learning community as the social unit. Research questions examined differences in responses of all participants (N = 148) between the 5 scales of the School Professional Staff as Learning Community (SPSaLC) questionnaire as well as differences in responses between administrators (n = 30) and teachers (n = 100). A repeated-measures ANOVA indicated significant differences in SPSaLC scale scores (p <.001) with shared vision, addressed needs, and support learning scores significantly higher than democratic and feedback scores. To examine differences in perceptions between teachers and administrators, a MANOVA revealed significant differences (p <.001) indicating that administrators scored shared vision and addresses needs higher than did teachers. The study results may lead to positive social change by providing the local district with initial research findings on the perceptions of school staff related to the 5 major dimensions of a PLC. The district might use these findings to plan for professional development for teachers and administrators to strengthen the implementation of the learning community model at the local site.

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.

Thesis (Ph.D)--Virginia Commonwealth University, 2009. / Prepared for: School of Education. Title from title-page of electronic thesis. Bibliography: leaves 178-201.

Ηλεκτρονικές κοινότητες μάθησης και υπηρεσίες εξατομίκευσης / E-learning communities and personalization

The Greater Victoria School District has undergone a reconfiguration to include middle schools in their public education system. This reconfiguration has students from grades six to eight learning in a new setting. Cedar Hill Middle school is an example of one of the middle schools that is now in its eighth year of existence. The school is the centre of the learning community that is made up of students, staff and parents. As part of an ongoing review and reflection, this research used an Appreciative Inquiry methodology to try to identify the strengths found within the learning community. Through a dialogic interview process, a sample of staff, parents and most importantly students were interviewed to collect the best experiences that they had experienced as a part of the learning community. The data was open coded to identify best experiences, categorize them, and then identify the themes or relationships between the experiences of the different members of the learning community. These relationships were then used to create a set of powerful propositions that can be used to potentially guide the growth of the Cedar Hill learning community. Through this process two main themes emerged. The first was the importance of connections within the system and the second was the need for diversity within the system. This supported the assumption that the learning community was indeed a complex system and reinforced the idea that Appreciative Inquiry is a tool that can be used to support and develop complex systems. / Graduate

Originally presented as the author's thesis: Universität Genf, 2006. / Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

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.

Title from title page of PDF (University of Missouri--St. Louis, viewed March 22, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 120-124).