In order to raise the quality of teaching and teacher education in Uruguay, a program of innovation and change was considered at a 1986 educational conference. Conference goals included identifying ways to: (1) increase opportunities to promote innovation and change; (2) search for strategies to encourage creative problem solving; (3) increase…

This document provides resources and tools for program developers who are designing orientations to meet the specific needs of their novice teachers. Section one looks at key questions for program developers to consider when designing an orientation (what they want beginning teachers to know about the community, district, school, and job). Section…

This book focuses on teaching diverse students, providing a pedagogical framework and concrete strategies that school staff and educators can use in the context of: professional development related to school renewal; professional development related to K-12 teaching; and teaching strategies for K-12 classrooms. The book also describes how…

This book is an action plan for improving education in the U.S, focusing on the key role of teachers in this improvement. It offers a detailed comparison of the educational methods of Germany, Japan, and the United States. The analysis begins with an international study of mathematics teaching in the three countries that was conducted as part of…

Teachers for Chicago is a program that recruits, educates, and trains new teachers. The Chicago Public Schools pays for candidates to earn a master's degree in education at a participating college or university. Participants work as interns for two years under the tutelage of a mentor. A sidebar describes how rural districts aggressively recruit…

This annual journal issue contains 21 papers, many of which were developed as background pieces for sessions of the annual conferences of the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education (POD). Papers are grouped into four sections on: personal reflections, faculty development, evaluation of teaching practices, and…

This study, begun in October 1987, was conducted to explore the effect of particular contexts of schooling on educational outcomes and to provide a comprehensive look at what and how context conditions affect teaching and learning. The study design integrates 3 years of field research in 16 public and private high schools in 2 states and analyses…

Chief academic officers at 1,053 institutions of higher education across the United States were surveyed about the barriers to improving teaching and learning. Using factor analysis, responses were reduced to nine general problem areas. In order of importance from most important to least important, the problems identified were: financial support,…

Approved by the city's board of education in July 1982, Houston's Quality Assurance Program is intended to help assure continual professional growth for teachers. By establishing a system of faculty performance assessment, the program seeks to identify teachers' strengths and weaknesses, improve communication, and develop priorities for…

The curricular and extracurricular responsibilities of teaching in a small school district require uniquely prepared teachers. Rural teachers often need additional background in instructional methods for teaching reading, content areas other than their specialty, discipline techniques, use of community resources, and individualized diagnosis and…

Despite the fact that teacher evaluation has long been a factor in the areas of promotion and salary increase, the proposed statewide implementation of a teacher assessment plan (the Mississippi Teacher Assessment Instrument) has aroused anxiety in Mississippi's educational environment. It is therefore critical that principals actively promote a…

This proposal is predicated on the assumption that in order to improve instruction, formative assistance must be conceptually separated from summative evaluation. Teacher improvement requires the involvement of other teachers, department chairs, students, parents, and administrators, whereas summative evaluation is separate from the growth process…

For years, the classic supervision model has frustrated both principals and teachers by fostering superior-subordinate relationships, focusing on teacher conformity rather than growth, or producing checklist data that is irrelevant to the curriculum. This book offers a practical, time-saving alternative that impacts student achievement by…

The emergence of the discourse around learning and teaching is one of the more remarkable phenomena of the last decade in higher education. Increasingly, universities are being required to pay greater attention to improving teaching and enhancing student learning. This book will help universities and colleges achieve these goals through an…

This book for teachers, administrators, and central office staff provides guidelines for orchestrating and extending conversations among case users, with strategies for improving facilitators' effectiveness and a conceptual framework for understanding and acting in the role of facilitator. The book describes how to foster an entire professional…