Building professional learning communities (PLC) has become a widely recognized strategy for school development and student achievement. Four Finnish comprehensive schools were identified as being ready to be PLCs in previous quantitative study, the purpose of this study was investigate practices these schools. In paper, we used data from qualitative multiple-case which investigated leadership,...

S. Billett et al. (eds.), International Handbook of Research in Professional and Practice-based Learning, Springer International Handbooks of Education, DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-8902-8_2, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014 Abstract For a long time, the sociological analysis of professional work has differentiated professionalism as a special means of organizing work and controlling ...

This essay describes The Evolving Professional (EP) concept at use within the School of Dentistry, the University of Queensland as a mutli-level framework that connects the learner and the educator in the scholarship of learning, the scholarship of teaching and learning and professional development. Perspectives and reflections into how this concept could be used to connect the nexus between pr...

Workplaces are complex, dynamic spaces. While some practices routine and highly predictable, informed by disciplinary practical knowledge, others unpredictable emergent. Outcomes-based education, characterised standardised, objective measurement of performance under controlled conditions, might be appropriate for routinised practice, but cannot account emergent forms professional knowledge. Som...

In this article, we begin with a discussion of the development and sustaining of professional learning communities. We proposed that PLCs can be an effective form of professional development for teachers. This professional development can be facilitated by the principal. The necessary cultural components for effective professional learning communities are also included. Embedded in the discussi...