One method, among others, to improve the school curriculum is having teachers and supervisors visit innovative school-class settings. These innovative schools must exemplify quality teaching-learning situations. (Author)

One interesting method for teachers to extend their understanding of what their own teaching is all about is to visit other schools. It can help them solve old problems and develop new views on education. Discusses some insights into the evolution of school policies and curricula and provides guidelines for ensuring a productive visiting program.…

Professional development research suggests that teachers learn best from and with each other in ongoing, job-embedded activities. "A Facilitator's Guide to Professional Learning Teams" provides a way of engaging school faculties in sustained, onsite professional development that builds capacity and collegiality, improves teaching quality, and…

Suggests ways advisers can improve themselves and their school newspapers, such as coordinating activities with other school faculty and members of the local business and arts community. (RL)

Action research, with its emphasis on applied scientific inquiry, helps teachers develop the skills to analyze what is happening in their classrooms. (Author)

Videotaping has become an accepted procedure for assessing teacher performance and providing feedback for self-analysis. Split-screen videotaping takes the process one step further. (Author)

Suggests ways reading teachers can keep up with new children's books, obtain books, and motivate students to read. (DD)

Three high school teachers describe how they changed their approaches to the teaching of composition. (DD)

Describes a mathematics teacher's experience and change from a traditional behaviorist dispenser of knowledge to a constructivist facilitator of meaning during professional development. Compares the stages of teacher development metaphorically to the stages of a butterfly. Contains 11 references. (ASK)

Four actions are necessary when contracting to do staff development: recognize that a presenter is a consultant first, arrange for a group contracting conversation in order to completely understand the school's needs, work from a standard set of design questions, and work from a standard set of logistics questions. (SM)

One elementary and two secondary teachers from the Roeper School (Michigan) for gifted students present instructional dilemmas that exemplify the complex nature of teaching. Each case is followed by expert commentaries from within and outside the field of gifted education. Cases address learning from a master teacher, the student with a poor…

This paper discusses the amelioration of college teaching by the use of peer review within a supportive mentor relationship. In such a relationship, the mentor and the more junior teacher work as peers, and this removes the punitive element from the evaluation process and adds an element of support. The peer/mentor evaluator can be simply a…

This article provides a framework for defining and analyzing classroom management problems of beginning teachers. It also includes a practical illustration of the application of this framework to the solution of a concrete teaching problem. (Editor)

A teacher shares his method of reducing the negative feelings teachers sometimes get and of saving time and energy. At the end of each day, he spends 10 or 15 minutes analyzing and evaluating his lessons of the day. Ten tips are included. (MT)