Information on the National Diffusion Network, its goals and accomplishments, inservice offerings, and affect on teachers is given in a question and answer format. (CJ)

Information is presented to help elementary principals manage and facilitate staff development, drawing upon research concerning effective schools, educational change, and leadership. Requisite knowledge and skills are proposed for principals, with recommendations provided for using staff development to effect school improvement. (SM)

Presents strategies to help staff developers and classroom teachers work through the transition phase of a paradigm shift in educational practice, highlighting traditional assessment and grading models and noting the importance of allowing teachers time to reframe and integrate the new model, meeting in small groups to understand the transition.…

Describes how coteaching can enhance reflective practice. Three phases of coteaching help promote reflective practice and professional growth are described: building trust and setting goals via initial interviews, reflection-on-action, and reflection-in-action. Recommendations for staff developers are included. (SM)

Interview with Thomas Guskey examines the benefits of staff development, presenting reasons for interest in the topic, advice for educators who want to trace the impact of staff development programs on participants and students, and the need for staff developers to identify some targets and monitor movement toward the targets. (SM)

Teachers can use professional development portfolios to facilitate learning and improve classroom practice. The article offers a history and description of professional development portfolios, sharing how teachers have used them and examining the influence of professional development portfolios on teachers as learners. Implications for staff…

Presents guidelines for staff developers who wish to create and sustain changes in schools. The article explains why staff development must be reconceptualized, discusses the emerging systems roles for staff developers, and shares information gained from extensive experience in applying a reconceptualized model of staff development. (SM)

In this age of accountability, evaluation must become an integral part of staff development. This paper describes what evaluation is; the three types of evaluation (planning, formative, and summative); and the five critical stages of staff development evaluation. It presents 12 guidelines for improving the quality of professional-development…

It is important to dispel myths that pervade current professional-development planning and establish and follow specific guidelines for effectively using additional professional-development time. The paper dispels three major myths that diminish the effectiveness of professional-development planning and offers four guidelines for ensuring wise use…

A series of focus group interviews with teachers and principals from six schools in several mid-Atlantic states examined common frustrations over staff development and school restructuring. Results of the interviews showed that the staff development needs of schools undergoing restructuring often do not match programs offered by the state or…

An interagency conference, Reading Families and Youth Who Have Limited Resources, was held in September 1992. Over a 2-day period, 186 adult educators and human service professionals participated in 27 different workshops. An innovative evaluation model was developed to assess the impacts of conference participation on reaching audiences who have…

Concerned with the growing utilization of part-time community college faculty and their isolation from full-time faculty and institutional support, an inter-disciplinary team of community college and university faculty investigated current part-time faculty development efforts. Five models emerged, including "benign neglect", a workshop approach,…

Outlines the failure of traditional staff development programs and theorizes that the crucial issue in staff development concerns the problem of educational authority: Who makes what decisions and how? Successful models for staff development programs should have personal, organizational, and political foci. (JMF)

The Illinois Model has been developed in the hopes of again producing excellence in education. The model provides for inservice experience to update teachers, the use of staff development activities to develop curricular instructional materials, and effective dissemination of the materials. (JOW)

Describes a program in which school district teaching staff members provided inservice training as opposed to outside consultants. Reports the program was successful and met with the approval of the staff. (FL)