Based on case studies of Chinese teachers in Shanghai and their workplace learning within the context of reform, this book examines how Chinese teachers learn together when they engage in school-based learning activities. Since the New Curriculum Reform in China in 2001, school-based teaching research groups (TRGs) (Jiaoyanzu) have played an important role in changing teacher learning approaches. Informed by organizational learning frameworks and organizational knowledge theory, the author examines the processes and effects of teacher learning in school-based settings, particularly the role of school leadership in the learning and change of in-service teachers. Implications of sustainably optimizing the school-based teacher learning communities for school improvement are also discussed. The book will be helpful and valuable for policymakers, school leaders, researchers, students, teachers, and other educational practitioners in understanding the distinctive features of school-based teachers’ learning in China.

Increasingly the education world is recognizing that the development of learning communities is an effective means for improving schools without increasing the budget or adding new programs. This indispensible volume offers practical advice gathered from 22 schools (elementary, middle, and high schools) that have successfully modeled or are creating professional learning communities.

How can educators create a collective method of professional development that results in the genuine, sustained teacher learning essential to improving student achievement? That question is at the heart of this comprehensive and practical guide to process learning circles, a unique and powerful way to develop, strengthen, and enrich professional learning communities. Authors Geoffrey and Renate N. Caine have dedicated more than 20 years to researching how people learn naturally. From this foundation, they describe in detail how process learning circles work, and they provide readers with a clear understanding of how powerful and successful this approach to professional learning can be. Along the way, they explore * The three critical elements of great professional development * How to create a field of listening * The logistics and phases of process learning circles * Tips for success as a process leader * The effects of individual differences and group dynamics * Principles for developing a process that works Examples from schools that have implemented process learning circles provide evidence of the method's success, and the authors also include an explanation of 12 underlying brain/mind learning principles, guidelines for using online tools, and broader suggestions for how to move from teaching for memorization to teaching for understanding. Written with both teachers and administrators in mind, Strengthening and Enriching Your Professional Learning Community: The Art of Learning Together is an essential guide to professional learning and development that works.

Provides early childhood teachers a framework for collaborating with children to create a dynamic, emergent curriculum.

The time of exclusive top-down leadership is over! Only teachers can transform education from inside the classroom, and this book defines best practices of collaborative teacher leadership. Specific techniques, supporting research, expert insight, and real classroom stories illustrate how to work together for student learning, create a guaranteed and viable curriculum, and use data to inform instruction.

Illustrates how teachers can participate in reading groups, shared staff study, professional networks, and more to create successful learning communities that translate into academic achievement for students.

Coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing are ways of learning to teach that truly bridge the gap between theory and praxis, as new teachers learn to teach alongside peers and more experienced teachers. These practices are also means of overcoming teacher isolation and burnout. Through cogenerative dialogue sessions, new and experienced teachers, university supervisors, researchers, and administrators are able to create local theory for the purpose of improving teaching and learning. In this book, contributors from four countries report on how coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing worked in their situation.