Seven videotapes of teachers teaching under the eye of trained teacher advisers and discussing their efforts with the advisers, coupled with interviews with the teachers and advisers involved, provided researchers with information on effective adviser-teacher relationships. The seven videotaped conferences selected for analysis involved advisers…

This report describes a collaborative research effort to examine the nature, role, and impact of staff development in an unspecified desegregated, urban school district. The report outlines the study which was conducted as a short term focused ethnography in three elementary and three secondary schools employing both interview and observation as…

Interviews with 105 teachers and 14 administrators, supplemented by observation, provide data for a focused ethnography of the school as a workplace, specifically, of organizational characteristics conducive to continued "learning on the job." Findings suggest critical social organization variables that lend themselves to quantitative…

Draws on three intensive case studies of teacher knowledge, practice, and learning among teachers of mathematics and English in two high schools in order to examine the problem of how classroom teaching practice comes to be known, shared, and developed among teachers through their out-of-classroom interactions. The article also discusses classroom…

The conditions necessary to sustain collegial professional relationships and the problems with these relationships are explored in this article. Strategies important for successful staff development are described. (DF)

A comprehensive inventory of formal staff development activity and costs for 30 California school districts yields a portrait of locally organized opportunities for teachers and reveals the policy stance taken by districts toward teachers and their professional development. (TJH)

To encourage talented teachers to remain in the profession, their rewards and opportunities must be expanded. Also, a level of quality teaching must be established and maintained by organizing schools for continuing improvement. Recent research on improving technical competence and collegiality among teachers offers guidance towards accomplishing…

A study was conducted to examine the nature, role and impact of staff development in an urban desegregated school district. The study was a collaborative effort that involved arrangements with district personnel, participating schools, and community members. An attempt was made to determine the contribution made by staff development to school…

Finds fault with federal and local attempts to improve and influence the teaching profession. Points out that federal and professional standards are fruitless or counterproductive in the absence of local organizations that can apply them in the classroom. (DR)

Teachers who served as advisers to help other teachers improve their classroom techniques in the Marin County (California) Office of Education's Teacher Advisor Project found six principles affecting successful, nonthreatening relationships: sharing common language, focusing on key concerns, gathering hard evidence, interacting fully, acting…

Juxtaposes the issue of professional development, specifically teachers'"opportunity to learn," with how the workplace context of teaching supports impedes curriculum integration between vocational and academic education. Portraits of three urban high schools reveal the problem of professional development as one of reinventing the high school…

This essay posits a problem of "fit" between five streams of reform (subject matter teaching, diverse student populations, uses of student assessment, social organization of schooling, and professionalization of teaching), and prevailing configurations of teachers' professional development. It argues that the dominant…