This paper is intended to supplement the relatively scant amount of information available to principals on mentoring and mentor programs for beginning teachers. Suggestions include: learning the basic principles of effective new teacher mentor programs with respect to design, implementation, and evaluation; understanding the local new teacher…

Based on the belief that teaching involves a lifelong cyclical process of study, practice, and reflection, this handbook details the staff development opportunities for prekindergarten personnel in Dade County, Florida for 1997-98. Procedures, workshops, explanatory descriptions, and scheduling information for staff development are presented in…

Explores a principal's response to a new teacher who seems promising but is not teaching very well. (RH)

Describes events of the Maine Writing Project Summer Institute. Notes that what happened in this past summer's institute can serve as a model for the ways poetry can be integrated throughout educators' work with students and throughout the lives of educators. (SG)

Provides a guiding framework for assisting preservice teachers in the development of habits of mind that will inform their personal best practice. Includes student-created working portfolios that inform and direct their learning and individual conferences, and which serve as an authentic assessment. (SG)

Argues that inservice programs are important in disseminating information, but do little to help teachers receive feedback about their teaching. Argues that by focusing on the children instead of the teacher and allowing the teacher to be in charge, reading supervisors can form partnerships with teachers based on mutual trust and respect. (RS)

Describes the experiences of a university professor teaching high school English for one week. Notes the lack of time for individual instruction and the benefits of meeting students daily. Proposes that any professor responsible for teacher education should be required to teach in the public schools at least every two to three years. (RS)

Presents strategies to help staff developers and classroom teachers work through the transition phase of a paradigm shift in educational practice, highlighting traditional assessment and grading models and noting the importance of allowing teachers time to reframe and integrate the new model, meeting in small groups to understand the transition.…

Describes how coteaching can enhance reflective practice. Three phases of coteaching help promote reflective practice and professional growth are described: building trust and setting goals via initial interviews, reflection-on-action, and reflection-in-action. Recommendations for staff developers are included. (SM)

This article explains how to use learning-centered course portfolios to improve teaching and learning in the college classroom. It discusses how such portfolios can be used to document and assess the substance and complexity of teaching; connect assessment of teaching with assessment of learning; and foster better teaching and learning. (MDM)

Teachers can use professional development portfolios to facilitate learning and improve classroom practice. The article offers a history and description of professional development portfolios, sharing how teachers have used them and examining the influence of professional development portfolios on teachers as learners. Implications for staff…

Presents suggestions to help teachers improve their chances of being selected to speak at educational conferences. Ideas include speaking locally, applying for short sessions, creating catchy titles, being specific, being flexible, and not overselling. Though conferences are often expensive, many teachers participate to share with their…

Examines the inductive approach to learning, which helps ensure an interactive environment where students use their language processes to learn. Preservice teachers can learn to organize their teaching inductively. Such training should include direct experience with the inductive approach, analysis of the experiences, guided practice, and coaching…

Describes a conceptual framework that integrates teacher cognitive, critical, and personal characteristics; the framework serves to guide the development of reflective decision making, showing teacher educators how to form effective teachers. The model's collegial environment encourages efficacy, flexibility, consciousness, and social…

Staff developers can foster teacher growth using varied approaches to teacher reflection, and developers must consider level of pedagogical functioning and psychological orientation when designing approaches to reflection for enhancing professional growth. The article suggests that providing appropriate reflective experiences at one stage helps…