This article focuses upon the quality and scholarship of teaching as it pertains to educational and faculty development. We outline what more than 200 faculty members at one institution have done over a 3-year period to make significant and sustained improvements in their teaching, surprisingly with minimal effort. The top three factors leading to…

Teaching standards are regularly described as a mechanism for improving the status of the teaching profession and as a means to develop high-quality teachers. Less attention has been paid to the difficulties of fostering professional learning when externally produced standards are imposed on teachers. This paper outlines how lesson study can…

Today, many higher educational institutions are forward thinking about promoting strategic initiatives by establishing partnerships with other universities nationally and internationally. Being financial and academically savvy, universities are reaching out to meet the demands of public interests in different types of college programs and…

In Oakwood City School District, differentiation is--and has been for a number of years--their primary academic goal. In Oakwood, the Core Team, a group of teacher leaders and administrators that has been instrumental in the implementation of differentiation, has used Tomlinson's (2007) "fire and light" metaphor to identify strategies to ensure…

Parents, practitioners, and policymakers agree that the key to improving public education in America is placing highly skilled and effective teachers in all classrooms. Yet the nation still lacks a practical set of standards and assessments that can guarantee that teachers, particularly new teachers, are well prepared and ready to teach. This…

In this report, the Center for Teaching Quality (CTQ), in collaboration with National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) from North Carolina, offer a set of TeacherSolutions on how to improve practices and policies for teaching and learning in 21st century schools. This cadre of classroom experts offer their best thinking on some of today's most…

Study abroad's purpose, once conceived primarily as a means for acquiring knowledge in a content area as well as language acquisition, began in the 1980s to be considered a vehicle for helping American students become less "parochial" and better prepared to live and work in a globalized world. To achieve these goals, students must be…

Presented is a cross-analysis of seven case studies to show how induction and mentoring worked to shift beginning teachers from a focus on survival and self to a focus on student learning. Stage teacher development theories have influenced the support given to beginning teachers, therefore induction tends to prioritise classroom and stress…

"This is the piece that's been missing." This reaction is common among educators engaged in AIW Iowa, an initiative that engages teachers and administrators in professional learning communities that are improving student achievement, increasing student engagement, and building a schoolwide professional culture focused on improving…

A low-performing California school district experienced a dramatic turnaround when faculty members began studying student assessment data and working together to ensure students had the support they needed. Sanger Unified School District began its reform journey in 2004 when district leaders launched an effort to focus deliberately on student…

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…

States and school districts are exploring alternatives to state tests for measuring teachers' contributions to student learning. One approach applies statistical value-added methods to alternative student assessments such as commercially available tests and end-of course tests. The evidence suggests that these methods can reliably distinguish…

In the last decade, educational reform efforts have focussed primarily on "technical fixes--changes in structures and practices" such as mandated curriculum and standardized tests. The imposition of these accountability measures has led to the deprofessionalization of teachers as mediators between the curriculum and the students in the…

As new performance-management-related policies go from idea to implementation, policy makers and education leaders will be called upon to flesh-out what are still broad principles in many areas. This represents a significant inflection point for the teaching profession and the management of public school systems. Early decisions will determine…

Teachers are the most important school-level factor in student success--but as any parent knows, all teachers are not created equal. Reforms to the current quite cursory teacher evaluation system, if done well, have the potential to remove the worst-performing teachers and, even more important, to assist the majority in improving their craft.…