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In education, innovations are frequently introduced to promote changes to the curriculum, teachers practice, and the classroom environment, however, these initiatives are often implemented without sufficient evaluation to monitor their impact and effectiveness in bringing about the desired changes. This book demonstrates that teachers professional learning is a complex process, strongly influenced by teachers beliefs, concerns and understandings, and is impacted by the primary and secondary factors identified by the research. Teachers must be able to envision the advantages of incorporating new strategies into their existing practice, and consequently seek to make these changes to their teaching. This study has shown that students are also an important influence the implementation of an innovation, without their support, teachers are unlikely to make successful changes to their teaching practice. Implications of the research include the need to elaborate the CASSP professional learning model to include the secondary factors identified in the study, and the need to inform students about innovations so that they can see the benefits for them in terms of improved learning outcome

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Dr. Rachel Sheffield has a PhD in Science Education, she is currently teaching at Curtin University in Western Australia in the School of Education. Subsequent to her PhD she has been examining the use of technology firstly around Interactive Whiteboards and then more recently to create on-line inquiry for tertiary, primary and secondary students.

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