Continuing professional development (CPD) for teachers must be situated within the context of the practice of teachers and be relevant to their teaching and learning needs. A CPD project was conducted in a Hong Kong kindergarten class. For five years prior to the CPD project, the class had used a mixed curriculum of project approach topics and…

Standards can aid educators as they work to produce strong student writers who can create meaningful and skillfully crafted authentic pieces of writing. This once-a-month, yearlong professional development program, conducted during the school day, shifted a district's kindergarten writing program to a writing workshop model that enabled the…

Despite the fact that two of every three students in U.S. schools have reading proficiencies below the level needed to adequately do grade-level work, schools don't make a point of offering either high-quality professional development for kindergarten teachers nor expert tutorial instruction for at-risk kindergartners. This means that most schools…

Science IDEAS is an evidence-based model that reflects interdisciplinary research findings that support the integration of literacy (e.g., reading comprehension) within science instruction in grades K-5. Presented is a framework for planning integrated science and literacy instruction in which six elements (hands-on investigations, reading,…

This study was designed based on a qualitative paradigm to explore the professional development of Taiwanese early childhood educators. The method of phenomenology was employed. The main research question addressed was "How do early childhood educators construe their professional development experience?" Seven Taiwanese early childhood…

One of the largest initiatives using coaching has been Reading First, a federal project whose purpose is to improve reading outcomes for students in low-performing K-3 schools. The present study addressed two questions: (1) Who becomes a reading coach, and what background, skills, and qualifications do coaches bring to their jobs? and (2) How do…

This highly practical guide is grounded in the authors' experience setting up and running a successful professional development program to improve K-3 reading instruction. The book systematically describes how professional development works: how sessions are organized, what they contain, routines and procedures, and the roles of each participant.…

The purpose of this case study is to describe the challenges one coach faced during the initial implementation of a coaching initiative involving 33 teachers in an urban, high-poverty elementary school. Reading coaches are increasingly expected to play a key role in the professional development efforts to improve reading instruction in order to…

In fall 2002, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced 24 major grants to establish Mathematics and Science Education Partnership (MSP) programs across the U.S. The overall program objective of these grants is to "increase the capacity of preK-12 educational systems and institutions of higher education to provide the requisites for …

Kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong are blamed for not putting child-initiated learning theory into practice. Their competence is challenged. An earlier study ( Li, 2003 ) suggested that the professional development of kindergarten teachers was limited by their inability to extend thinking beyond their own personal concerns so that the needs of the…

The No Child Left Behind Act's requirements for scientifically based research and new accountability standards will affect how professional development leaders do their work. Meeting the new requirements means leaders must more carefully evaluate new programs of professional learning and assess the results. Evaluation must become a given, not an…

In this article we address the "highly qualified teacher" provisions of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. We argue that the provisions' intent is important and achievable, and we outline critical research on the issue of which teacher qualifications matter for student learning. Three questions frame the discussion: Does…

Helping teachers decide the critical point when a young child is ready to learn and the appropriate strategy to use with that child is the crux of this successful program. Scaffolding Early Literacy is helping close the learning gap between higher-performing students and minority, special needs, and low socioeconomic students. (Contains 3…