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This article describes the Boston Teacher Leadership Certificate program created to expand teachers' capacity for teacher leadership roles. The professional learning was designed to strengthen teachers' leadership skills while also paying attention to whether and under what conditions they were more successful in their roles. To monitor the program's impact, the Boston Teacher Leadership Certificate program used four data routines: comparing pre-and post-course surveys, analyzing exit slips, reviewing online discussions, and looking together at student work. These routines supported collaborative inquiry, shared ownership for the quality of the work, and learning at all levels. At the end of the professional learning, 95% of course participants indicated that the course would improve their ability to have a positive impact on others' teaching practice, and 91% felt that the course would have a positive impact on their own teaching practice.

Abstract Alzheimer’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease-related dementias (AD/ADRD) constitute a worldwide public health crisis. In light of the AD/ADRD epidemic now existing within the global COVID-19 pandemic, the need for global action to improve dementia care is greater than ever. The article collection “Dementia- an Interdisciplinary Approach,” in the Israeli Journal of Health Policy and Research (IJHPR) highlights the need for interprofessional approaches to improving outcomes for people living with dementia and their care partners, as well as the complexities of conducting dementia care research.

The CLAVATA pathway plays a key role in the regulation of multicellular shoot and root meristems in flowering plants. In Arabidopsis, CLAVATA 3-like signaling peptides (CLEs) act via receptor-like kinases CLAVATA 1 and CRINKLY 4 (CR4). In the moss Physcomitrium patens, PpCLAVATA and PpCR4 were previously studied independently and shown to play conserved roles in the regulation of cell proliferation and differentiation. The plant calpain DEFECTIVE KERNEL 1 (DEK1) has been identified as another key regulator of cell division and cell fate in vascular plants and bryophytes. The functional interaction between CLAVATA, CR4, and DEK1 remains unknown. Here, we show that P. patens crinkly4 and dek1 mutants respond differently to CLE peptide treatments suggesting their distinct roles in the CLAVATA pathway. Reduced CLAVATA-mediated suppression of leafy shoot growth in Δcr4 mutants indicates that PpCR4 is involved in CLV3p perception, most likely as a receptor. The CLV3p strongly suppressed leaf vein development in Δcr4 mutants, suggesting that other receptors are involved in these processes and indicating a potential role of PpCR4 in organ sensitization to CLEs.

A school is much more than a collection of individual classrooms. Fostering a collaborative and learning-oriented culture can improve teachers' and students' success. In model classrooms, teachers who have participated in professional learning open their classroom doors and agree to have others observe as they work to integrate the targeted new approaches. Model classrooms, therefore, do not guarantee a window into high-level practice. Instead, they provide models of how to learn the practice. Model classrooms simultaneously give teachers an opportunity to be lead learners among their colleagues and power up the potential impact of aligned professional learning and coaching. In this article, the authors present model classrooms and their impact on amplifying coaching.

Schools committed to equity are experimenting with creative and powerful ways for teachers to ensure all students receive what they need to learn in the classroom. Many of these efforts focus professional learning on strengthening the instructional core -- teachers' knowledge of and relationships with students, teachers' deep and critical knowledge of the content, and the ways teachers make that content relevant to students. This article discusses how when teachers' learning takes the form of collaborative inquiry, it produces a wealth of evidence and insight that not only helps teachers transform their teaching practice, but is also invaluable for identifying the school conditions needed to support that transformation. School leaders have much they can learn from teachers' collaborative inquiry if they are prepared to do so.

While many researchers have studied teacher leaders, a corresponding field of research on teacher leadership has been slow to develop. This narrative account charts our strategic efforts to build a community of scholars capable of strengthening teacher leadership as a field of study. It documents the parallel development of two entities, the Teacher Leadership Congress, a grassroots movement, and Division K, Section 2, a formal, institutional structure embedded within the American Educational Research Association. Using a community of practice lens (Wenger, 1998), we examine the ways in which these two entities complemented each other and galvanized a collection of individuals into a research community. We found that coordination between the Teacher Leadership Congress and Division K has resulted in a professional community that has facilitated co-construction of new understandings and identities, furthered teacher leadership research, and enhanced researchers' capacities to guide practice in ways that are urgently needed.

Within weeks of school building closings in spring 2020, it became clear to many educators that the fear and isolation experienced by students and educators would force changes to schooling in ways that will reverberate for a long time to come. Many educators were particularly concerned about students and communities of color that were already marginalized. In her conversations with education leaders, Jill Harrison Berg began asking: If change is inevitable, what can we do to ensure the change is for the better, especially for the students who haven't been well-served by schools? She wanted to learn how equity-minded education leaders are using this crisis as an opportunity to establish structures and create a culture that supports all students to get what they need to thrive. Among these inspiring conversations were several with Casey Sovo, a member of the Comanche Nation, 20-year educator, and Bureau of Indian Education program administrator in northern North Dakota. In discussion, Sovo made a strong case that now is the time for growing accomplished teachers by strengthening partnerships, making space for peer-led professional learning, and other strategies. He shared why these efforts are vital for Indigenous communities and how he is encouraging them in schools on the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians reservation. This article consists of excerpts from these conversations.

When COVID-19 appeared on international radar this year and began its march around the globe, it revealed to any who might have previously denied it that the work to eliminate educational inequities is far from done. During this pandemic, more than ever, many educators are keeping these inequities top of mind. Rather than move online with what educators have always done, they are seeking out professional learning to help push their practices toward greater instructional equity. Educators have quickly organized to teach themselves--individually and collectively--how to take their teaching and learning to a higher level while unable to connect face to face. This article discusses three types of practices emerging as starting places for this work: (1) knowing students and families; (2) inquiry-based teaching; and (3) expanding student agency and choices.

The study of neurogenesis is critical to understanding of the evolution of nervous systems. Within invertebrates, this process has been extensively studied in Drosophila melanogaster, which is the predominant model thanks to the availability of advanced genetic tools. However, insect nervous systems are extremely diverse, and by studying a range of taxa we can gain additional information about how nervous systems and their development evolve. One example of the high diversity of insect nervous system diversity is provided by the mushroom bodies. Mushroom bodies have critical roles in learning and memory and vary dramatically across species in relative size and the type(s) of sensory information they process. Heliconiini butterflies provide a useful snapshot of this diversity within a closely related clade. Within Heliconiini, the genus Heliconius contains species where mushroom bodies are 3-4 times larger than other closely related genera, relative to the rest of the brain. This variation in size is largely explained by increases in the number of Kenyon cells, the intrinsic neurons which form the mushroom body. Hence, variation in mushroom body size is the product of changes in cell proliferation during Kenyon cell neurogenesis. Studying this variation requires adapting labelling techniques for use in less commonly studied organisms, as methods developed for common laboratory insects often do not work. Here, we present a modified protocol for EdU staining to examine neurogenesis in large-brained insects, using Heliconiini butterflies as our primary case, but also demonstrating applicability to cockroaches, another large-brained insect.

While many schools are experimenting with new fads and formulas in an effort to ensure that all students receive what they need to be successful, others have begun to look anew at the resources they already have: teachers. Each teacher brings a unique combination of knowledge, skills, experiences, passions, and talents to his or her school, just as students do to their classrooms. When teachers are able to exchange expertise, challenge each other to meet high expectations, and support each other to meet them, they better serve their own students while also being a tremendous resource for improving the quality of each other's teaching. They become teacher leaders. The knowledge and skills teachers need to be effective as leaders largely lie beyond what most learn in their teacher preparation programs. This includes knowledge of how to build community and shared ownership, managing groups, facilitating dialogue, leading professional learning, guiding evidence-based decision-making, systems thinking, communication and advocacy, and self-care.

The word "equity" is found throughout U.S. schools today -- in district mission statements, school vision documents, and classroom posters. It is used to signify a value that feels fundamental to our democracy and public education system: Students' educational outcomes should not be determined by their demographics, including race, ZIP code, primary language, gender, and/or disability. Yet, according to the authors, equity can feel elusive in practice. Education stakeholders who aim to advance equity in practice might approach this work from different fronts. Policymakers and district administrators might focus on providing all students with access to quality educational resources, including high-quality school facilities, teachers, curriculum and instructional materials. Doing this well requires ongoing inquiry of one's own beliefs, an ever expanding repertoire of professional practices, and constant collaboration to develop student-centered systems. It requires a strategic approach to professional learning. There is no more important time to commit to investing in professional learning for equity. On issues of race, where national disparities persist, we have a particular responsibility for sustained dialogue and action. This historic reality converges with this moment in time, in which we are experiencing an uptick in public acts of racism (Anti-Defamation League, 2017; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2018). Educators have a unique and essential role to play in growing a generation of citizens equipped to think critically; act with truth, kindness, confidence, and tact; and transform the systems that reinforce inequity. In this article, the authors discuss three dimensions that can support educators in learning about equity: beliefs, actions, and systems.

Throughout the past two decades, Boston Public Schools has seen strong, steady improvement, recently demonstrated through student gains on NAEP's Trial Urban District Assessment in math and recognized through the award of the 2006 Broad Prize for Urban Education. Teacher leaders have played an important role in Boston's improvement. As team leaders, mentors, and members of instructional leadership teams, for example, teacher leaders have helped to strengthen teaching by leading collaborative teams, supporting colleagues' professional learning, and facilitating data-driven decision making. The Boston Teacher Leadership Certificate capitalizes on the expertise of Boston's experienced teacher leaders to bolster the system's capacity to accelerate learning for all students. Since effective teaching is essential for students' academic growth, it only makes sense that effective teachers would be important assets to improving student learning in a school or district. Yet effective teachers are not necessarily effective in formal teacher leadership roles. Teacher leadership roles, which teachers and administrators design to contribute in a deliberate way to improved teaching and learning, require a range of knowledge and skills beyond those required for effective teaching. The Boston Teacher Leadership Certificate program is unique from other programs that support teachers to build teacher leadership skills in three important ways. First, the courses it comprises are designed to strengthen the specific knowledge and skills needed in Boston, ensuring teachers' capacity-building efforts connect directly with district needs. Second, the certificate benefits from a partnership among the district, the local education fund, and local institutions of higher education. This collaboration enables teachers to earn graduate credits for participating in high-quality, role-relevant professional learning. Lastly, experienced teacher leaders are the designers and instructors for the certificate's core courses to ensure that the certificate meets the demands of participants' work.

Given the importance of quality teaching for student success, it is clear that every child needs to be able to receive instruction from a teacher who possesses the knowledge and skills for quality teaching--an accomplished teacher. It is less clear, however, how current teacher development policies and practices can ensure that all students will have the accomplished teachers they need. In 2004, a broad-based coalition of Massachusetts's education stakeholders came together to construct a clear path to accomplished teaching by working toward common standards, a coherent system of supports, and shared accountability for quality teaching. Although the work of our coalition is unfinished, our experience thus far will be useful to the field as increasing numbers of districts and states are thinking strategically about how to develop the human resources needed to provide every child with accomplished teaching. (Contains 1 figure.)

In the North Middlesex Regional School District, located in north central Massachusetts near the New Hampshire border, teachers knew that the district had urgent challenges. Isolated programs provided rigor to only some students, student achievement scores showed room for improvement, and a recent accreditation review had raised questions about the high school's scheduling, teaching techniques, and time on learning. The large high school was not seen as a welcoming place by parents and students. With such pressing needs in the district, the leadership team was confident that the solution lay in instructional improvement. In addition to the instructional improvement possibilities, the team knew that creating teacher leaders could help improve teacher empowerment, morale, and motivation. However, the district recognized that it had neither the capacity nor the experience with developing teacher leaders to provide training to teachers for these roles, as well as to prepare school leaders and the rest of the faculty for the changes these new roles would create in their work. The leadership team recognized that it would be worthwhile to invest some of its limited resources in outside help for this initiative to distribute instructional leadership and build capacity. After consultation with teachers and leaders throughout the district and with support from Teachers21, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit organization promoting educational research, policy, and practice for a comprehensive approach to professional learning, the leadership team set about creating a system that could sustain teachers' ongoing, job-embedded professional learning to lead to instructional improvement, professional renewal, and success for all students. This article describes how external partners facilitated the growth of the district's instructional leaders through sustained learning opportunities and collaborative communities.

Diverse branching forms have evolved multiple times across the tree of life to facilitate resource acquisition and exchange with the environment. In the vascular plant group, the ancestral pattern of branching involves dichotomy of a parent shoot apex to form two new daughter apices. The molecular basis of axillary branching in Arabidopsis is well understood, but few regulators of dichotomous branching are known. Through analyses of dichotomous branching in the lycophyte, Selaginella kraussiana, we identify PIN-mediated auxin transport as an ancestral branch regulator of vascular plants. We show that short-range auxin transport out of the apices promotes dichotomy and that branch dominance is globally coordinated by long-range auxin transport. Uniquely in Selaginella, angle meristems initiate at each dichotomy, and these can develop into rhizophores or branching angle shoots. We show that long-range auxin transport and a transitory drop in PIN expression are involved in angle shoot development. We conclude that PIN-mediated auxin transport is an ancestral mechanism for vascular plant branching that was independently recruited into Selaginella angle shoot development and seed plant axillary branching during evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shoot branching is a primary contributor to plant architecture, evolving independently in flowering plant sporophytes and moss gametophytes. Mechanistic understanding of branching is largely limited to flowering plants such as Arabidopsis, which have a recent evolutionary origin. We show that in gametophytic shoots of Physcomitrella, lateral branches arise by re-specification of epidermal cells into branch initials. A simple model co-ordinating the activity of leafy shoot tips can account for branching patterns, and three known and ancient hormonal regulators of sporophytic branching interact to generate the branching pattern- auxin, cytokinin and strigolactone. The mode of auxin transport required in branch patterning is a key divergence point from known sporophytic pathways. Although PIN-mediated basipetal auxin transport regulates branching patterns in flowering plants, this is not so in Physcomitrella, where bi-directional transport is required to generate realistic branching patterns. Experiments with callose synthesis inhibitors suggest plasmodesmal connectivity as a potential mechanism for transport.

While instructional inequity persists throughout U.S. schools, urban schools serving students with a wide array of out-of-school factors that affect their schooling are especially challenged to ensure that Black and Brown students receive what they need to learn as consistently as white students do. Critical race theory helps explain why this inequity exists but does not explain how educators can address it. Drawing upon this theory and our experience with school-based Instructional Leadership Teams (ILTs), we use literature on transformational change, distributed leadership, and organizational learning to propose conditions under which ILTs can be engines for instructional equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose ? The purpose of this paper is to explore the connection between social capital, transaction costs, and organizational outcomes. Design/methodology/approach ? The study is based on a survey of 176 employees of a high-tech manufacturer of electronics located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the USA. The survey included three self-report measures: social capital, transaction costs, and organizational outcomes. Self-report items were used to measure three dimensions of social capital: structure, relationships, and communication. Transaction cost items measured information exchange, problem solving, conflict management, and behavior regulation. Questions measuring organizational outcomes included quality, change, equity, and fairness. Findings ? The central finding of this research is the significant association between social capital and both transaction costs and organizational outcomes. As expected, trust served as a predictor of both transaction costs and organizational outcomes. In addition, the social capital components of access, timing, and network ties were significantly associated with transaction costs and organizational outcomes. Research limitations/implications ? The items used to measure the communication dimension of social capital did not demonstrate sufficient reliability to be entered into the analysis. Practical implications ? The results suggest an alternative approach to considering the connection between communication management and organizational achievement. This approach, also, theoretically centralizes communication and communication related concerns as foundational for social capital analysis. Originality/value ? This study offers a valuable alternative theoretic approach to understanding the impact of communication on organizational affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to enable those who have never reconstructed a phylogeny to do so from scratch. The paper does not attempt to be a comprehensive theoretical guide, but describes one rigorous way of obtaining phylogenetic trees. Those who follow the methods outlined should be able to understand the basic ideas behind the steps taken, the meaning of the phylogenetic trees obtained and the scope of questions that can be answered with phylogenetic methods. The protocols have been successfully tested by volunteers with no phylogenetic experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Floral diversity in Streptocarpus and Saintpaulia can be classified into six distinct types on the basis of quantitative variation. Species are differentiated by overall flower size and by corolla lobe size in relation to corolla tube opening size, characteristics implicated in pollination ecology. Saintpaulia has a very short corolla tube and yellow protruding anthers, strikingly different from Streptocarpus , and probably associated with buzz pollination. Some species of Streptocarpus and all species of Saintpaulia are enantiostylous, a feature often linked to buzz pollination. Mapping of these floral characters onto a molecular phylogeny based on ITS sequence data showed that inStreptocarpus flower size evolved from small to large, with reversals in four species. The putatively bee pollinated ‘open-tubed’ type had two independent origins, and the putatively lepidopteran-pollinated ‘keyhole’ type had four separate origins. Enantiostyly had one or two origins. The degree of zygomorphy varies withinStreptocarpus/Saintpaulia. The most extreme difference is between Saintpaulia ionantha and aSaintpaulia peloric cultivar. The developmental basis of floral variation was compared using SEM in three very different types: Streptocarpus primulifolius, Saintpaulia ionantha and a Saintpaulia peloric cultivar. Differences in corolla tube length and zygomorphy are established very early in flower development. Small, early changes in flower development establish major changes in mature floral morphology. Copyright 1999 Annals of Botany Company [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant microbial fuel cells are a recently developed technology that exploits photosynthesis in vascular plants by harnessing solar energy and generating electrical power. In this study, the model moss species Physcomitrella patens, and other environmental samples of mosses, have been used to develop a non-vascular bryophyte microbial fuel cell (bryoMFC). A novel three-dimensional anodic matrix was successfully created and characterized and was further tested in a bryoMFC to determine the capacity of mosses to generate electrical power. The importance of anodophilic microorganisms in the bryoMFC was also determined. It was found that the non-sterile bryoMFCs operated with P. patens delivered over an order of magnitude higher peak power output (2.6 ± 0.6 µW m−2) than bryoMFCs kept in near-sterile conditions (0.2 ± 0.1 µW m−2). These results confirm the importance of the microbial populations for delivering electrons to the anode in a bryoMFC. When the bryoMFCs were operated with environmental samples of moss (non-sterile) the peak power output reached 6.7 ± 0.6 mW m−2. The bryoMFCs operated with environmental samples of moss were able to power a commercial radio receiver or an environmental sensor (LCD desktop weather station).