The primary foundation of teacher evaluation is establishing standards for assessing the optimal characteristics of qualified teachers.  The present study aimed at exploring standards of professional competence of adult-level Iranian EFL teachers in the private sector and developing a questionnaire to assess their professional competence.  To this end, initially, the members of the professional...

Social networking sites (SNS) have been used to support educational and professional endeavors. However, little research has been done to understand the relationship between educator identity and participation in SNS or to examine the implications that institutional regulation of such media may have upon educator identity. Using grounded theory, in this study we developed a framework for unders...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship among Iranian EFL university lecturers’ professional and institutional identity, and their teaching efficacy. To this end, 100 EFL university lecturers from different branches of Islamic Azad Universities, including Kermanshah, Isfahan and Hamedan, took part in the study by completing the Professional Identity Questionnaire, the Inst...

Most professional development activities focus on individual teachers, such as mentoring or the use of portfolios. However, new developments in higher education require teachers to work together in teams more often. Due to these changes, there is a growing need for professional development activities focusing on teams. Therefore, this review study was conducted to provide an overview of what is...

Self-assessment is a powerful technique for improving achievement. In this article we outline a theory of teacher change that links self-assessment by teachers to their professional growth. This theory provides avenues for peers and change agents to influence teacher practice. We apply the theory to change in mathematics teaching and report an explanatory case study in which use of the self-ass...

This presentation draws on teacher effectiveness research to consider implications for teacher professional development. The first part provides a critical review of research on teacher effectiveness. The major findings of this field of research are analyzed. It is argued that teacher factors are presented as being in opposition to one another and that the whole process of searching for teacher...