The impact of teacher observations in alignment with professional development (PD) on teacher efficacy was quantified for 292 schools in 110 districts within 27 U.S. States. Teacher observations conducted by school leaders or designated internal coaches were coordinated with PD offerings aligned with intended teacher improvements. The PD involved…

Peer observation of teaching (POT) is a reciprocal process where a peer observes another's teaching (classroom, virtual, on-line or even teaching resource such as unit outlines, assignments). Peers then provide constructive feedbacks that would enable teaching professional development through the mirror of critical reflection by both the observer…

Postgraduate study provides teachers with opportunities to become critical consumers of research as well as generators of their own knowledge, enabling them to fulfil the mandate of teaching being a research informed and evidenced based profession (Robinson, 2003). This article pays attention to 18 practicing teachers' reasons for undertaking a…

Professional development workshops are one of the primary mechanisms used to help faculty improve their teaching, and draw in many STEM instructors every year. Although workshops serve a critical role in changing instructional practices within our community, we rarely assess workshops through careful consideration of how they engage faculty.…

The purpose of this action research study was to conduct a professional development activity to provide content-area teachers with academic vocabulary strategies to be implemented during instruction on a daily basis. Professional development is essential for teachers to gain new knowledge and skills in order to hone their craft to improve student…

Teaching in today's changing society requires teachers' independent judgement and development. One way of fostering professional development is action research; described, however, as a challenging and time-consuming process. This qualitative study asks whether action research is worthwhile already in pre-service teacher education, or whether the…

This study used design experiments, specifically micro-cycle teaching experiments (MTE) as a catalyst for practice-based professional development. The MTE incorporated research-based characteristics of effective professional development: it was embedded in the teachers' daily work of planning and enacting lessons, co-constructed with the…

As online learning is becoming more deeply entrenched in higher education, many institutions are designing professional development activities aimed at helping faculty improve their online teaching. The focus of this descriptive study was on identifying the preferences faculty who teach online have regarding how they want to learn about new…

Numerous districts are implementing Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) as a part of reform efforts to improve student achievement to meet external accountability mandates. Few districts, however, have considered the essential supports and components that teachers working in PLCs require for these teams to result in instructional improvement.…

Sabbaticals have been identified as an important tool to help faculty remain current in their responsibilities. By having a dedicated break from traditional responsibilities, faculty members have self-reported rejuvenation and recommitment to their professional work. Institutional policies, however, are largely vague and lack measures to help…

Peter Farrell provides some interesting insight into the importance of teacher research and gives examples of his own research from his personal classroom experiences. The importance of disseminating findings from the classroom as professional development is discussed.

Music teachers are in a class all their own when it comes to voice use. These elite vocal athletes require stamina, strength, and flexibility from their voices day in, day out for hours at a time. Voice rehabilitation clinics and research show that music education ranks high among the professionals most commonly affected by voice problems.…

What percentage of their budgets should schools and districts invest in professional learning? To answer that question, schools and districts must first know how much they are spending on professional learning and be able to connect that spending to student achievement. Knowing what is invested in professional learning requires understanding the…

A visit to a primary school in Dublin, Ireland, shows that, although the structure of the Irish school system is much different than in the U.S., the professional learning needs and challenges are very much the same. In this article, Anthony Armstrong, publications editor at Learning Forward, writes about his meeting with Maria Spring, principal…

Well-designed and thoughtful approaches to practitioner research can bring about very positive impacts to improve teaching and learning in science classrooms. Readers of highly-rated research also need to appreciate and understand research design, literature critique, appropriate data collection, methods of analysis, theoretical frameworks,…