There is a wealth of literature on the induction and support of provisionally registered teachers (Boreen, 2009; Bubb, 2007; Cameron, Lovett, & Garvey Berger, 2007) and the key skills of mentoring (Achinstein & Athanases, 2006; Glickman, 2002). However literature on how to meet the professional learning needs of curriculum leaders developing their mentoring skill set has largely been ignored in leadership literature. This study, informed by MacBeath and Dempster’s (2009)concept of ‘leadership for learning’, upholds the need for leadership work to focus on the improvement of student outcomes (Barber & Fullan, 2005) rather than traditional approaches to education which focussed on making resources available to students. In an outcomes-focussed model of education, the needs of the students are at the forefront of all learning. By focussing on teachers’ professional learning through mentoring and the use of a teacher inquiry model, the students’ learning needs are prioritised. The focus for my study is the skillset of curriculum leaders for their work with teachers within their learning areas. The participants for this study were five curriculum leaders, all from the same secondary school. This intervention study investigated the factors which contributed to the professional learning of the mentors, their views of their leadership role and the kinds of learning about mentoring which were beneficial to understandings about mentoring. By focussing on key adult learning principles, structures that support learning, and attention to a mentoring skill set, the participants were supported to develop their mentoring skills. The mentors participated in a professional learning experience, referred to as a Quality Learning Circle (QLC), over one and a half school terms, to co-construct their understanding of mentoring practice. In a QLC the focus is on the learners seeking and making changes to their practice in a collaborative, supportive environment (Lovett & Verstappen, 2003). The mentors collaboratively developed new understandings through deliberate talk in the QLC about their shared interest in mentoring. They also had opportunities for immediate and practical application of their new knowledge. While they participated in the QLC they co-currently developed their mentoring skills by working with a mentee who taught in the same subject area as themselves. This study features a qualitative methodology with an interpretive case study of experienced curriculum leaders. Data collection tools included a gap analysis survey which explored their understandings of their school’s current professional learning opportunities. A second data source was a career questionnaire which explored their teaching history and experiences of professional learning. This was followed by initial interviews which focussed on how they interpreted their role of a curriculum leader and the extent they could connect leadership with students’ learning. I also analysed transcripts of QLC meetings, and the teachers’ reflective journals. Four of the mentors worked with a provisionally registered teacher (PRT), while one mentor chose to work with a more experienced colleague. This study offered a new type of collegial interaction for the teachers. The mentors chose their own goals, a mentee to work alongside and the direction of their learning about mentoring. The QLC met five times during the study and the mentors and participant researcher (PR) also kept a reflective journal. In between the QLC sessions the mentors met with their mentees to practise their mentoring skills, such as questioning skills, and the use of observational tools for classroom observations. A typical QLC session focussed on each of the mentors talking about the mentoring practice they had undertaken. The group provided support and guidance on possible next steps of practice. Readings and practical resources were also discussed and there was an expectation that the mentors would practice an aspect of mentoring and report back to the group at the next meeting. At the close of the study the mentors were re-interviewed to compare their views of their leadership role and learning from their initial interviews. An iterative process was used so that emerging understandings of the data could arise. The data is presented according to the three broad themes of ‘effective professional learning’, ‘leadership role’ and ‘professional learning about mentoring’. The findings of this study highlight the importance of collaborative learning opportunities for teachers where they can state and resolve practical issues in a supportive group (Cochran-Smith, Feiman-Nemser, McIntyre, & Association of Teacher Educators., 2008). Among all of the findings there were four major findings about the development of curriculum leaders’ mentoring skills: the value of opportunities for deliberate talk, the importance of teacher agency, the need for specific tools in developing mentoring practice, and the necessity of understanding the curriculum leaders’ leadership role. My detailed account of the experiences of the five curriculum leaders offers a practical example of what the development of curriculum leaders’ understandings of mentoring might look like. This study serves to highlight the challenges for schools to provide support for teachers wanting to take responsibility for their own professional learning. In the absence of any formalised leadership professional learning about mentoring for curriculum leaders, this study proved to be a useful study to demonstrate the potential of the QLC approach to support curriculum leaders in their understandings and practice of mentoring. The key findings of this study validate the need for further research on what is needed for effective mentoring to be an integral part of every school.

The purpose of this qualitative transcendental phenomenological study is to describe a particular phenomenon: the lived experiences of high school teachers who were responsible for creating and teaching a senior-year English Transition Course. Moustakas’ methods, framework and data analysis guidelines, coupled with interviews using Seidman’s three-interview process, is the best procedure for achieving the research aim. Thus, the study is based upon the results of interviews of 10 high school teachers from schools within a specific geographic region who collaborated with four English faculty members from a comprehensive four-year institution within the same region, over a period of three years. It is important to capture this phenomenon, as it occurred within a time of broad educational reform and uncertainty and will allow others to understand how teachers respond to interventions designed to reduce the need for remediation in reading and writing. This research examines the following questions: (a) What is the essence of high school teachers’ experiences planning a senior-year English Transition course designed to achieve college readiness in reading and writing? Specifically, how do teachers experience planning as a result of collaborative sessions with University English faculty? Additionally, how do teachers experience planning (e.g., course goals, units of study, individual lessons) as result of their individual efforts? (b) What is the essence of the experience of teaching a senior-year English Transition course designed to achieve college readiness in reading and writing? The fundamental textural-structural synthesis revealed four common themes as well as a variety of sub-themes across all participants. Scientific terms were used as metaphors. The juxtaposition of this scientific metaphorical depiction, ostensibly at odds in a study of literacy instruction, intends to reveal the complexity of teacher experiences and the totality of external circumstances as well as internal conditions they encountered. The insights from this study may inform curriculum specialists, policy-makers, school administrators, and English teachers.

The term professional learning community is generally defined as a group of people sharing and critically interrogating their practice in an “ongoing, reflective, collaborative, inclusive, learning-oriented, growth-promoting way and operating as a collective enterprise” (Stoll, Bolam, McMahon, Wallace & Thomas, 2006, p. 223). The professional learning community is increasingly being used as an explicit change strategy for generating, sharing and managing knowledge in educational organizations. Improving the performance of a district requires district supervisory officers to build their capacity for learning how to improve leadership practices. In this retrospective qualitative study, I investigate to what extent leadership practices change for a group of district supervisory officers, that is, the senior leaders responsible for the district leadership functions, while they responded to provincial reform mandates between 2000 and 2006. I also examine whether this group of supervisory officers in one Ontario English Public School District, renamed Green Ridge District School Board (GRDSB) for anonymity, functions as a professional learning community. Data sources used in this investigation were developed through a university partnership between GRDSB and an Ontario Institute for Studies in Education field center known as the Midwestern Centre. Data were gathered from six research reports, written annually between 2001 and 2006; interviews from seven supervisory officers conducted in 2006; and interviews from 12 school administrator interviews held in 2005. One limitation of the study is that participants were selected from school sites that chose to become involved with the district change strategies and therefore tended to take a positive orientation when responding to semi-structured questions. The data gathered did not reflect the views of those who chose not to be actively involved in the district change strategies. This investigation’s findings inform leadership theory and practice with respect to the descriptions of evolving leadership practices of a group of supervisory officers as they worked to re-culture the GRDSB. Findings provide empirical support for the contention that a socially constructed environment, such as a professional learning community, provides a context for supporting changes to leadership practices through collective professional learning, problem solving, knowledge creation and knowledge sharing (Anderson, 2006; Honig, 2008; Louis, 2008).

The importance of family involvement is highlighted by findings that parents’ behaviours, beliefs and attitudes affect children’s behaviour in a major way. The Family Maths programme, which is the focus of this study, provides support for the transformative education practices targeted by the South African Department of Education by offering an intervention which includes teachers, learners and their families in an affirming learning community. In this study participating parents were interviewed to investigate their perceptions of the Family Maths programme mainly in terms of their engagement, enjoyment and confidence levels. The major themes and ideas that were generated in this study include the development of positive attitudes, parents and children working and talking together, and the skills exhibited by Family Maths facilitators. These findings are analysed within the parameters of complexity science and the pre-requisite conditions for developing a complex learning community, viz. internal diversity, redundancy, decentralized control, organised randomness and neighbour interactions.

No description available.

The intent of this professional doctorate study was to clarify theory and develop knowledge that could benefit the researcher's workplace. It achieved two aims. The first was the useful knowledge gained by the insider-researcher about how to effect teacher learning in a reform context. The second was the improved understanding of the uniqueness of contextual conditions that affected teacher learning in one school. A case study of a single school site was the means of examining the problem of what issues confronted teachers in learning new knowledge mandated by curriculum reform, along with why those issues existed and how teachers dealt with them. A genealogical approach to the literature investigation determined where, why and how teacher learning should be effected in a learning community, in what reflected an "outside in" approach to the problem. However, the intent of the study was that this should be balanced by the "inside out" approach evident in the consideration of what teachers in a school had to say about the realities of teacher learning. Interviews with teachers considered good informants resulted in quality data that facilitated the construction of explanatory theory. A comparison of this theory constructed from data grounded in the realities of teachers' experiences with the theory derived from the literature constituted the final stage of clarifying the problem. Results from the study, therefore, represented both useful knowledge and understanding of the problem. These were of benefit to the specific school, while contributing to the professional efficacy of the researcher-insider, responsible for delivering curriculum reform that was dependent on teacher learning.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1993. / Includes tables. Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: L. Lee Knefelkamp. Dissertation Committee: Dawn R. Person. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 269-274).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2002. / Title from title page screen, viewed December 1, 2005. Dissertation Committee: James C. Palmer (chair), Edward R. Hines, Albert T. Azinger, Mohammed Nur-Awaleh. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 152-164) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2008. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 186-199). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Research shows that schools are largely a professional solo cultures (Blossing 2014), which impede teachers' professional development as learning takes place in social interaction and through living-practice dilemmas (Wenger 1998/2004). Changing cultures is difficult, not least in the world of education that on the whole has been a solo culture since the establishment of convent schools.The purpose of this study is to investigate whether teachers believe that through professional collaboration in the form of Teacher Learning Community (TLC) has contributed their knowledge and compentence in the field of embedding formative assessment. TLC is a sort of community of practice for improve teaching. The study works according to the hypothesis that “Teachers believe that professional collaboration in the form of Teacher Learning Community (TLC) has contributed to their knowledge and expertise in the field of embedding formative assessment”. The study was conducted at a large secondary school in central Sweden which organized its collegial learning according to TLC and exclusively worked to develop and modify instruction regarding embedding formative assessment during five years before the study. The theoretical approach applied is based on the tradition of "school improvement" with a human relational and group dynamic organizational based on social-constructivism) (Schein, 1994; Giddens, 1984; Wenger 1998/2004; Schmuck & Runkel, 1994; Blossing 2008; Scherp 1998). The study is quantitative and was conducted using a questionnaire, processed through a factor analysis, that is, a multivariate analysis. The analysis was conducted in four stages: stage 1: factor analysis to reduce factors exceeding the value of 1; step 2: categorization of all questions related to the component; step 3: measurement of the homogeneity of issues with Cronbach's Alpha; step 4: hypothesis testing in Person. The correlation was 0,686 (p<0,001). This is a so called census survey and the high response rate gave the study high validity. The study concluded that it is possible to change a school's historic solo culture to a collaborative team culture through systematic collegial cooperation in the form of TLC, and as a result to change the current teaching patterns.