Remote and invisible: the voices of female Indigenous educational leaders in Northern Territory remote community schools in Australia

While the literature on women and educational leadership has been addressed in substantive ways in recent years, the experiences that reflect female Australian educational leaders are rare. This article reports findings from a study of five female Indigenous principals in the Northern Territory utilising biographic narratives and foregrounds their experiences as female educational leaders in Indigenous communities. I share the views of Ribbins, P. and Gronn, P. (2013. Researching principals: context and culture in the study of leadership in schools. Asia Pacific journal of education, 20 (2), 34–45) and Dimmock, C. and Walker, A. (2005. Educational leadership: culture and diversity. London: Sage) that research and theory into educational leadership must move towards the inclusion of localised unique cultural contexts since the practice of leadership is a socially bounded process. The study reveals the daily complex roles and challenges of being a female Indigenous principal in communities that are grounded in broader Indigenous epistemologies, beliefs, and value systems yet to be fully embraced by mainstream educational leadership perspectives.     

SRL in Online Cooperative Learning: implications for pre-service teacher training

The aim of this article is to investigate the relation between self-regulated learning and online collaborative environments. Based on the study of a blended course for trainee teachers, it explores the potential of the online collaborative component of the course for the practice and development of Self-Regulated Learning. The study made use of two questionnaires, developed within the TELEPEERS European project, to evaluate the potential support to SRL provided by technology-enhanced learning environments. The results provide information about the aspects of SRL practised in our environment. These include social competences, such as communication and negotiation with tutors and peers, emotional and motivational aspects, such as keeping up motivation and maintaining and restoring a positive working attitude, and cognitive and metacognitive skills such as management of time and learning environment and reflection on learning outcomes. The study also suggests the need to consider not only the SRL of the individuals involved in the learning process, but also the SRL of the whole community, that is, the result of the mediation between individual autonomy and group collaboration.     

Professional learning community process in the United States: conceptualization of the process and district support for schools

Abstract

As the Professional Learning Community (PLC) process becomes embedded within schools, the level of district support has a direct impact on whether schools have the ability to re-culture and sustain highly effective collaborative practices. The purpose of this article is to share a professional learning community conceptual framework from the US, and to highlight recent findings relating to district level support for the PLC process in schools. The professional learning community conceptual model is organized around five dimensions: shared and supportive leadership, shared values and vision, collaborative learning and application, shared personal practice, and supportive conditions. The overarching question guiding this qualitative research study is: How do school district personnel (central office staff) support schools in the professional learning community process? Findings reveal the importance of transformative and proactive district involvement, and the use of transparency, trust, accountability, and autonomy in school re-culturing. It was also found that developing leadership capacity, embedding professional development, and focusing the culture on student success were critically important. As districts provide support for the PLC dimensions and themes, school leaders will have a foundation of curricular strategies, collaborative skills, and necessary resources to serve teachers and students through continuous school improvement.     

A Critical Review of the Literature on Electronic Networks as Reflective Discourse Communities for Inservice Teachers

Over the past two decades, computer mediated communication (CMC) technologies have been used in a variety of efforts aimed at fostering teacher learning and teacher collaboration. This study is an attempt to closely examine the literature on the use of electronic networks for creating reflective teacher communities. We found that many teacher networks pursued the goal of building learning and reflective communities for teachers. Much was expected out of electronic teacher networks both as a practical solution to the stubborn problems in teacher professional development and as a new agent to create what is difficult to realize in face-to-face situations. However, we found a general lack of rigorous research on these networks. Little is known about the effectiveness of these networks on teacher learning. Few seriously examined to what degree the networks indeed were communities that promote reflective discourses.     

虚拟学习社区空间的社会学分析——以“华师在线”为例

虚拟学习社区的空间是一种社会空间。通常，在虚拟学习社区中存在着三类社会空间，即个体空间、群体空间和公共空间。这三类社会空间在社会互动、社会群体以及社会网络方面的特征各不相同，功能则相互补充。在群体空间的学生群体空间中，一种新型的学生群体——“课群”开始取代传统的班级群体，并且在互动媒介、学习方式、人口结构、社会网络、角色分工、群体意识以及群体规范等方面显示出一些新的特征。     

Sustaining data use professional learning communities in schools: The role of leadership practices

Sustaining professional learning communities (PLCs) focused on data use is a challenge for schools. Sustainability is achieved by making the PLC’s core components evident in schools’ organizational routines. Leadership can support sustainability according to literature, but it is unclear what leadership for sustainability looks like in practice. We therefore investigated what sustainable data use PLCs and leadership look like in three secondary schools, and explored how leadership influences sustainable data use PLCs. A mixed methods design (observations, social network questionnaire, school documents) was used to gain in-depth insight. The findings show that sustainability is difficult to achieve at both the ostensive and performative level. The schools differed in the form of sustainability they achieved. A broad set of leadership practices (e.g., organize meetings, participate actively in PLC, know content and procedure) were carried out in interplay by both formal and informal leaders.     

From apprentice to colleague: The metamorphosis of Early Career Researchers

While the studies of Early Career Researchers (ECRs) have contributed politically important insights into factors hindering ECRs, they have not yet achieved a theoretical understanding of the causal mechanisms that are at work in the transition from dependent to independent research. This paper positions the early career phase in a theoretical framework that combines approaches from the sociology of science and organisational sociology and emphasises the transitional process. In this framework, the early career phase is considered as containing a status passage from the apprentice to the colleague state of their career in their scientific communities. In order to capture the mechanisms underlying this transition, it is important to analyse the interactions of these careers as they unfold over time. The usefulness of this approach is demonstrated with a pilot study of Australian ECRs. We show (a) that misalignments of the three careers stretch the transition phase; (b) that the two major factors affecting the transition are a successful PhD and a research-intensive phase prior to normal academic employment; and (c) that the most important condition hindering the transition is the lack of time for research. It can be concluded that as a result of a ‘market failure’ of the university system, the transition from dependent to independent research is currently being relocated to a phase between the PhD and the first academic position.     

How L.A.T.E. it was, how L.A.T.E.

The London Association for the Teaching of English is a subject group that was founded in 1947 to ‘provide a live forum for the exchange of ideas, and to undertake the practical study of problems connected with the teaching of English’. The early history of this Association, its influence on the development of English pedagogy and practice is the subject of my current PhD research. Within this work are key questions about the nature of subject English, the curriculum, and the ways in which members of a subject community work together to effect change. This article gives some background to the research project, and begins to point towards some potentially important questions about the subject and ways of working together. After two decades of top down, centralised government initiatives around English pedagogy, curriculum and assessment, and teachers’ professional development, these questions are worth addressing.