This article describes a study that examines the boundary encounter between four sets of three participants on a distance education programme in initial teacher education. The study investigates the boundary zone created when the triad talk about teaching and learning as they collaboratively plan a lesson, and then when they talk about it afterwards. The main focus of the study was on the learning opportunities that are presented to student teachers as they engage in conversations about teaching and learning with their mentor and university tutor.

In this article, the authors were interested to examine how their different cultural backgrounds influenced the formation of their perspectives. Furthermore, the authors wanted to explore how their exchange of views of teaching and learning supported their teaching practice. The authors conclude that differences in their teaching perspectives demonstrated the different points of view in the educational systems in the two countries. However, through this collaborative self-study experience, the authors obtained a better understanding of the teaching values of their own and another culture.

In this article, the authors were interested to examine collective efficacy in the classroom by using Vygotsky's view. The authors' purpose was to illustrate ways in which the classroom teacher becomes classroom community organizer, especially as relating to the development of collective classroom efficacy. The data for this exploration were collected from an extensive ethnographic data set from one teacher’s fifth-grade classroom over four years.

The purpose of the current study was to explore students’ perceptions of the virtual classroom in terms of the impact they considered it made on their sense of transactional distance. The author used Moore’s (1997) Theory of Transactional Distance to analyze students' perceptions. The findings reveal that the use of the virtual classroom can potentially, at least, contribute to the development of quality dialogue. However according to Moore’s theory, this dialogue depends on structural aspects and, consequently, student perception of learner autonomy.

In this article, the author examines a preservice teacher’s use of the Inquiry-Application Instructional Model (I-AIM) to plan and enact an instructional sequence about photosynthesis. The author concludes that Leslie’s case illustrates some of the mediators that may shape preservice teachers’ uses of an instructional model, including their approach to teaching science, the curriculum materials they have available, and the meanings they make of the key constructs underlying the model.