The Virtual Gorilla Modeling Project--a professional development project--is a collaboration of middle and high school inservice teachers, Zoo Atlanta primatologists, science and computer educators, and students. During a 10-day professional development summer workshop, middle and high school teachers explore the world of the gorilla through…

We study the effects of various types of education and training on the ability of teachers to promote student achievement. Previous studies on the subject have been hampered by inadequate measures of teacher training and difficulties addressing the non-random selection of teachers to students and of teachers to training. We address these issues by…

This paper presents a detailed analysis of a teaching evaluation conversation between Michael Darwin, high school principal, and teacher, Joseph Wolenko, in order to explore how both attended to issues of "face" during the evaluation process. The analysis draws on data from a larger study in an ethnomethodology/conversation analysis…

An evaluative study was done of Project THISTLE (Thinking Skills in Teaching and Learning), a program designed to improve the basic skills of urban college-bound high school students by working with their teachers in an integrated process of curriculum and staff development. In particular, the evaluation looked at the impact of the program on…

Past research and experience have documented considerable variation in what is learned and applied in staff inservice efforts, even for participants in the same workshop. For a study which set out to explain such variation, pre- and post-workshop questionnaires were completed by 349 staff (three-fourths of whom were teachers) who participated in…

This paper reports the results of the final stage of a 30 month study of knowledge use in staff-initiated inservice workshops. In earlier stages of this study, knowledge acquisition, use, and impact correlated with multiple sets of participant, workshop, school, and community characteristics. Based on those results, a refined model was developed…

Continuing training--"staff development" or "inservice education"--now seems integral to improving the quality of teaching and administration in our schools. Hard evidence of the effectiveness of staff is generally lacking. This paper offers profiles which include a short description, advantages and disadvantages, unknown elements, and costs, of…

Virginia Commonwealth University's School-University Mathematics (SUM) program, described in this report, is designed to foster collegial relationships between university faculty and secondary mathematics teachers via summer mathematics colloquia, academic year collaborative inservice courses, and a Mathematics Teacher-in-Residence program. SUM…

This paper reports on a study of mathematics teachers' thinking in the teaching of contextual or word problems [WP] with particular focus on teachers' conceptions of WP and the relationship to teaching. The 20 participants included Grades 1-12 preservice and inservice teachers. Data consisted of interviews and classroom observations. The findings…

This report examines the nature and extent of professional development activities, assesses the current National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) collection of professional development data, and recommends ways to enhance that data collection. Section 1, "Overview and Background," introduces the subject. Section 2, "Linking…

The Interdisciplinary Teamed Instruction (ITI) project investigated the effects of interdisciplinary, teamed instruction on secondary school teaching and learning. It examined the effectiveness of a professional development model that facilitated the development, implementation, and evaluation of ITI. Through summer institutes and onsite…

Reports recent research into how English secondary teachers construct and develop notions of professionalism, noting how this is affected by changes in their working lives and recent educational reform. Teacher interviews indicated that local contexts are influential in shaping their sense of professionalism and that this is an important source of…

Questions how England's Secretary of State for Education uses the Teacher Training Agency (TTA) to define and control inservice teacher competency requirements, suggesting that this leads to teacher deprofessionalization. Recommends identifying threats to professional autonomy and preventing the TTA from moving to the next phase of regulation. (SM)

Describes a project that looked for new forms of inservice training that would be more in line with teachers' own ideas about developing their method of teaching. The process emphasizes letting teachers control their own inservice training and letting the problem, not the method, guide teacher development. (SM)

Depicts the current state of professional development of teachers in England and Wales, identifying pertinent issues and describing the INSET (Inservice Education and Training for Teachers) program. The paper discusses the status of the teaching profession in the United Kingdom and presents an agenda for teacher education in the 1990s. (SM)