Teachers' motivation and encouragement are considered as one of the priority areas in the Education Development Strategy of Kyrgyz Republic Ministry of Education and Science. At the same time, teachers claim that the specified salary structure, benefits, and working conditions do not meet their basic needs. In this study, we`ve tried to determine…

What does it mean to live a teacher's life? What does it mean to be a teacher, to become a teacher, to stay in teaching, or to leave the profession? Why are teachers doing what they are doing the way they are doing it? These questions have fascinated the author throughout his academic career as a researcher as well as in his teaching and his work…

Using ten universally accepted criteria for a profession and following the Structural-Functional Model of professionalism, this study evaluates the status of teaching as a profession in South Africa. The study found that policies and structures have been put in place since the beginning of the new millennium to enhance the professional status of…

Technological developments have altered pedagogies in classroom teaching but approaches to teacher professional development have remained largely unchanged. The purpose of this paper is to describe an evolving learning process that spans the last decade and draws from three different investigations into professional development. The author…

Teacher attitudes toward the inclusion of children with disabilities into general education classrooms have been found to be strong predictors of the success of efforts to create inclusive learning communities. Specifically, research has shown that when teachers have positive mindsets toward inclusion, they more readily adapt their teaching…

This article presents findings from the first independent, third-party appraisal on the impact of the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) on student test score gains in mathematics. TAP is a comprehensive school reform model designed to attract highly-effective teachers, improve instructional effectiveness, and elevate student achievement. We use a…

A benchmark for conceptualizing the relationship between teaching, research, and service was provided 6 years ago by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The foundation maintained that the relationship between teaching, research and service was at present of benefit to no one, least of all the student. Therefore it put forth a…

This paper reports on work done as a part of a broader case study on conditions influencing staff development in an elementary school setting. It found that although teachers universally emphasized the importance of peer interaction in their development, their descriptions of the actual interactions in which they took part were modest in scope.…

Much has been said and written about the "conflict" between professional research and teaching. The claim is often made that the two fields of endeavor should complement each other since research can enliven and update a professor's teaching. Little attention has been directed to the converse, the possibility that a professor's teaching…

This publication provides evaluative information to decision makers at the state and local levels to assist in making judgments about the extent to which the goals of the Model Career Options Program (MCOP) were attained. The MCOP goals are: (1) to provide an opportunity for teachers to expand their professional horizons and explore new avenues in…

For a communication studies administrator, the scholar envisioned in Ernest Boyer's "Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate" is an instructive guide to faculty and administrators pondering the balance or relationship between teaching and research. It is an immodest claim that each discipline teaches well but broadly…

When health occupations teachers are not able to leave their teaching jobs to obtain much needed clinical updating, alternatives must be found. The method of linking with local health care facilities to provide clinical updating for health occupations teachers is not perfect and has not been rated as the most effective. Clinical updating workshops…

Just as medical practitioners have professional associations to safeguard the public from poor doctoring, so too should the community college teaching profession be guided by a national association to oversee teachers' performance, especially given the tremendous role teachers play in an individual's development. Achieving the degree of…

Argues that a community college commission as part of the MLA is needed to respond to three primary concerns: (1) unrealistically heavy teaching loads; (2) declining, moribund, or extinct literature programs; and (3) professional collegiality between two- and four-year faculty members. (EL)

This paper draws on data from a larger case study of teacher development to identify what knowledge teachers value most highly in their professional development. The study found that teachers appraise the sources of knowledge available to them through formal, informal, and personal means according to three main criteria: relevance, capacity for…