Regional and national interest in reforming teaching in Indonesia has seen governments, NGOs and education specialists combine to drive pedagogical changes among school teachers there. Results of these programs have been indifferent at best. This paper reports on teacher reform programs in Provinsi Papua, one of the most marginal societies in…

Data-based decision making (DBDM) is an important element of educational policy in many countries, as it is assumed that student achievement will improve if teachers worked in a data-based way. However, studies that evaluate rigorously the effects of DBDM on student achievement are scarce. In this study, the effects of an intensive…

A teacher's assessment literacy refers to her or his demonstrated understanding of the principles behind selecting and designing tasks, judging student work, and interpreting and using assessment data to support student learning. This study examines the development of the task design aspect of assessment literacy in 12 Chinese language teachers as…

An intervention study was conducted with preschool teachers to address their beliefs and practice in the area of language and literacy. A total of 27 preschool teachers, each from different early childcare centers, participated in three 1-day professional learning sessions over the course of 9 months. Learning sessions focused on three different…

This study built on prior research regarding the effectiveness of the National Center for Research in Early Childhood Education (NCRECE) course by exploring the individual course components. Core aspects of course engagement and performance were described and examined in relation to improvements in the observed quality of teacher-child…

Professional learning communities have long been considered a powerful form of collaborative professional learning, as the Learning Communities standard in Learning Forward's Standards for Professional Learning attests (Learning Forward, 2011). This focus on communities can engage teachers in ongoing professional dialogue and examination of…

A key aspect of supporting teachers' learning on a large scale concerns mathematics leaders' practices in designing for and leading high-quality professional development. We report on a retrospective analysis of an initial design experiment aimed at supporting the learning of three math leaders who were charged with supporting the…

"The Mirage" describes the widely held perception among education leaders that they already know how to help teachers improve, and that they could achieve their goal of great teaching in far more classrooms if they just applied what they knew more widely. However, research suggests that despite enormous and admirable investments of time…

What is--or should be--the purpose of a teacher evaluation system? To compare teachers? To inform the public? To help teachers improve? Legislators might say that a teacher evaluation system's purpose is to remove bad teachers. Administrators might say that it is to assist them in matching teacher skills to specific groups of students. Parents…

This article describes the Sue Rose Summer Institute for Teachers at the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, which, for 30 years, has treated teachers as intellectuals. To that end, the nonprofit educational organization offers teachers from all grade levels and all disciplines an experience that either reacquaints them with or introduces…

This qualitative study examined the perspectives of principals related to professional development for teachers on formal plans of remediation for underperformance in the classroom. The principles associated with job-embedded professional development as well as cognitive dissonance provided a basis for analyzing data collected throughout the…

This study aimed to investigate the two primary school science teachers' conceptions of professional development, their perceptions of self-improvement and the factors influencing their professional development. In this investigation, a case study approach was adopted. The participant teachers were given a semi-structured interview and the data…

This research report is about the impact of university teachers' pedagogical skills training on approaches to teaching measured by teaching components in ASTU. Descriptive survey research design was employed. The participants were 111 teachers attended Pedagogical Skills Improvement on seven modules for 106hrs in the year 2009-2013.Stratified…

Traditional professional development offerings for teachers often overlook the needs of the physical educator. Left to their own devices, PE teachers frequently turn to online resources (e.g., PE Central, PHE America [formerly pelinks4u], PHYSEDagogy, and SHAPE America's Exchange and Teacher's Toolbox) for professional growth support. Clearly…

Community colleges are open access institutions, striving to meet the needs of all students regardless of level of academic preparation or achievement. Community college student enrollment continues to rise; however, the success of community college students has not increased accordingly. A significant number of students begin at community…