This article reports on an initial study of a professional learning community (PLC) of educators who are investigating mobile devices in their teaching. The research examined two conjectures: firstly, that a professional learning community would enrich understanding of teaching with mobile technologies; and secondly, that these technologies would enhance teaching. The findings indicate that progress towards an enriched engagement with m-learning may be promoted by the establishment of a PLC. The existing professional relationships facilitated community formation and enhanced the sense of commitment, risk-taking, shared responsibility and purpose. In addition, the results also indicate the contribution of mobile learning to teaching.

This article reports on an interprofessional pilot project. This pilot study engaged 2nd-year, preservice, graduate early childhood education and social work students in an interprofessional training and collaborative activity as part of their graduate coursework. This study suggests that graduate early childhood education and social work students recognize the benefits of preservice interprofessional education, but the experience of working across disciplines can be very challenging. The challenges include a lack of clarity around professional roles and responsibilities, differences in understandings of children’s behavior, and a perception that there will be little opportunity for interdisciplinary collaboration in early childhood settings. Despite these challenges, participants expressed how important it was for them to experience firsthand some of the potential benefits and challenges to interdisciplinary collaboration as preservice students.

This article presents a study, which examined the effectiveness of a specially designed intervention on chemical changes. The participants were one hundred and thirty Greek primary school teachers. The results show that pre-intervention, teachers were found to have a relatively limited ability in explaining chemical changes. The teachers also held a number of misconceptions similar to those of pupils. Post-intervention, teachers’ descriptions and explanations were found to be significantly improved. However, post-intervention, teachers seemed better able to manage the combustion of hydrogen and the heating of sugar, than the burning candle which had been studied in the course.

This article presents a brief overview of scenario-based instruction in Child, Family and Community online course. The results show that student and faculty feedback, as well as student learning outcomes, have revealed that the scenario and case-based aspects of the course design have been useful and helpful in achieving the course goals. Instructors reported that there was a noticeable difference between the students who participated in the scenario-based classes versus the students that participated in the traditional format of the course in terms of the depth and breadth of their work.

In this article, the author describes the development of a series of tasks designed to investigate and measure teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching geometry and measurement. The author presents three design features for rich, open-response items that assess mathematical knowledge for teaching. The set of six two-dimensional geometry and measurement tasks embody these design features and illustrate the ways in which the tasks are grounded in the context of teaching, capture nuanced teacher performance, and measure common and specialized content knowledge. The examples of teacher performance on these tasks illustrate the ways in which the tasks can differentiate teacher performance.