Assuming the role of mentor, a group of college of education faculty from the University of Central Florida supported their colleagues in a 45-hour state-mandated faculty development initiative. Two faculty members chronicle the mentor-mentee component of the training, sharing results of a mentee survey. Results suggested that effective mentoring…

Discusses recommendations for redesigning teacher education programs and addresses the need for professional development of teacher educators to meet the need for program design. Highlights include integrating and implementing technology; commitment toward change; obstacles to using technology; attitudes toward technology use; the narrative of…

Describes the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, discussing the importance of sustained professional development and collaboration in achieving reflective practice and teacher change and describing how social and cultural history and literature and innovative critical pedagogy work together to enrich curricula, advance…

Describes the Vienna (Austria) School-Based Teacher Development Project, an innovative inservice-teacher-training project that views faculty development as a process that should allow teachers to participate in decision making within their schools. A key feature is that teachers acquire new knowledge and skills while they improve their group…

Describes how one high school implemented schoolwide action research teams as a comprehensive change management strategy to develop teacher leaders, teachers as change agents, and a collaborative reflective culture. The three-year case study showed that work on action research teams did not come naturally or easily, but teachers improved over time…

Three integrated case studies in an elementary, middle, and high school examined similarities and differences in teacher leadership. Surveys, interviews, discussions, and observations indicated that time, support, and school climate both supported and constrained teacher leadership. Giving teachers voice through shared decision making played a…

Describes a project in which faculty from five community colleges and one liberal arts college collaborated on developing a seamless, competency-based program of courses to aid transfer students. Indicates that as a group those transfer students participating in the project had higher post-transfer GPAs than non-participating students. Contains…

Examines the context and organization of Norway's teacher education, discussing teacher roles and responsibilities, preservice and inservice teacher education programs, and society's expectations that teachers will act as masters, mentors, and mothers. The paper describes recent curriculum developments and the organization of Norway's educational…

Describes a professional-development project designed to establish a community of learners among high school teachers. Diverse English and history teachers met twice monthly for two-and-a-half years to read and discuss fiction and history, develop an interdisciplinary humanities curriculum, and videotape and view classroom instruction. Teachers at…

Higher education scholars who participate in grant-funded activities at a junior high school recognize that huge gaps exist between their work world and that of junior high teachers and students--"at risk" and otherwise. One way of overcoming the gap is deeply embedding professional development in schools; such collaboration takes extra time,…

Reflective peer coaching is a formative model for improving teaching and learning by examining intentions prior to teaching, then reflecting upon the experience. The goal of reflective peer coaching is to promote self-assessment and collaboration for better teaching and ultimately better learning. There are obvious benefits to colleagues…

Presents quantitative and qualitative data from a study involving a university, school districts and teacher candidates. Preservice-inservice dyads were taught how to use action research to examine, analyze, and reflect upon their teaching. Results indicated general acceptance by both new and experienced teachers, with developmental differences…

This article provides an opportunity to extend the discussion about teacher communities as part of complex school reform models, specifically centered on those communities whose membership is drawn on a semi-voluntary basis. Through a sixteen-month long ethnography, I document the activities of an urban teacher professional community (TPC) at a…

Teachers from an urban public high school and from a preK-12 private school in one metropolitan area discussed selections from John Dewey's works on education, art, and experience, in small study groups between 1996 and 1998. I facilitated these study groups as a joint inquiry with teachers about connections between Dewey's aesthetics and thinking…

This brief describes workplace conditions in "learning centered" schools, where practices are consistent with recent research knowledge about learning and its contexts. Its purpose is to support fundamental, long-term change by offering a vision of best practice for educators to consider, discuss, and adapt to their circumstances. It summarizes…