Before developing a school- and community-wide work plan around preventing bullying and harassment, school administrators should employ data collection tools to determine their specific areas of focus. Successful bullying prevention efforts must be driven by local data and rooted in research on effective practices. These policies must undergo…

This comprehensive and authoritative book serves as the road map to your school's professional development journey. Written for principals, professional development directors, other district leaders, and teacher leaders, "Professional Development: What Works" shows you how to plan and implement programs that promote teacher growth. Full…

Once you've established a professional learning community (PLC), you need to get this ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) action tool to ensure that your PLC stays focused on addressing teaching methods and student learning problems. This ASCD action tool explains how your PLC can use collaborative action research to…

Action research, explored in this book, is a seven-step process for improving teaching and learning in classrooms at all levels. Through practical examples, research tools, and easy-to-follow implementation strategies, this book guides readers through the action research process. The chapters are: (1) "What Is Action Research?"; (2) "How Is Action…

This handbook, written for educators (teachers, principals, central office administrators, university faculty, and area educational agency staff) offers guidelines on how to establish, maintain, and evaluate a practitioner-driven school network. Such a network is created and governed by practitioners who decide what services they want, modify the…

This guide introduces the skills and dispositions necessary to participate in educational action research. It targets teachers, administrators, college faculty, graduate students, state professional organizations, and state administrators. Chapter 1, "Understanding Action Research as a Tool for Professional Growth and Organizational Development,"…

An action-inquiry strategy that colleges, universities, and state agencies can use to design and test new approaches to tuition and student aid is proposed. Several institutional aid policy case studies are examined from two perspectives: as a process of rethinking the theories underlying current policy, and from the viewpoint of communication…

The article discusses the use of action research as a means of professional development. After describing action research and its benefits, the article explains the cyclical, collaborative process of action research, notes its possible applications, and presents implications for school reform. (SM)

This book offers guidelines for school administrators who want to apply the principles of Total Quality Management to the organizational challenges faced by schools. Based on W. Edwards Deming's nine attributes of successful leadership, the book shows how to make the transformation to instructional leadership based on Total Quality Education…

This book offers guidelines for action research, a process in which teachers experiment with various strategies at the classroom level. Action research is the process of systematically evaluating the consequences of educational decisions and adjusting practices to maximize effectiveness. Essentially the examination of one's own practice, it…

This guide provides teacher educators and staff developers with strategies to enhance the reflective thinking abilities of preservice and inservice educators. Strategies for reflective thinking are approached at three levels: technical, contextual, and dialectical. Within each level, strategies have been field tested with populations of preservice…

Methods of identifying effective special education practices are analyzed to help practitioners identify and adopt such practices. The contents of this guide include a flowchart for effective practice identification (EPI), an analysis of decision-making steps in this process, and two examples of identification procedures. The decision-making steps…

Use of ethnographic methods to assess learning and staff development needs for workplace adult education programs is discussed, focusing on the teacher's role as ethnographic researcher. Four stages of ethnographic research are identified: (1) open-ended, inductive study; (2) structured observation; (3) analysis; and (4) speculation and sharing of…

This book presents information on action research for teachers and administrators. Chapter 1, Reflective Professional Practice, discusses reflective professionals, urges active use of solitary dialogue and personal journals to enhance reflectiveness, delineates concerns of maturing educators, and summarizes meditative steps of reflective practice…

This book and its accompanying video highlights three interpersonal approaches to instructional improvement, observation skills, and the complete reflective clinical supervision process. Based on the principles of reflective practice, the kit is a professional development tool for educational leaders and staff members. Chapter 1, "Cycles of…