The importance of understanding how teachers work together and share practices with learning purposes is reflected in articles that look at teacher networks and teams, communities of practice and communities of learning, as well as peer coaching. There are studies that illustrate the use of different research procedures such as surveys and ethnography to study conditions for the success of networks as well as effects of networks on teacher meanings, identity and agency. Lesson study, the Japanese experience of teacher co-learning through mutual collaboration and feedback, is examined in  studies that link its effects to improvement of instruction, efficacy and collaboration and that review conditions that impact on its effectiveness.

The productivity of teamwork focussed on data collection and problem solving, case studies on communities of practice, peer-coaching trajectory and co-construction of situated assessments are the subject of another group of articles. Finally thestudies  consider the effects of teacher inquiry groups on changes in beliefs and practices, collaboration in mixed-culture situations of teachers and assistant teachers as well as the early development of a learning community.

To some extent this is an “umbrella” term for professional development that takes place formally or informally in schools and that is not assisted by outside facilitators. Some articles that look at teachers learning in school contexts draw on situated learning theory and consider this learning to be both individual and collaborative as well as facilitated or not by a range of factors , different school cultures and traditions.

By: Mary Grace G. Canare | Teacher I | Mabatang Elementary School | Abucay, Bataan