Applicants for a teaching certificate in Florida must complete a year-long internship and demonstrate mastery of twenty-four selected competencies. To accomplish this goal, a building-level support team system has been developed. Three members comprise the team: a peer-teacher, a building-level administrator, and at least one other professional…

Based on a synthesis of research and on telephone interviews with representatives of 22 school districts, this study analyzes the effectiveness and problems of two types of motivational plans for teachers: merit pay plans in which at least part of a teacher's pay is linked to performance, and nonmonetary performance-by-objectives plans in which…

Instructional leadership is leadership that is directly related to the processes of instruction where teachers, learners, and the curriculum interact. These three elements constitute the domains of the instructional process. The principal alone often cannot be effective in the supervisory role because of lack of time, lack of specific training and…

This annotated bibliography was prepared to provide background material for a synthesis paper, "Teacher Evaluation as a Strategy for Improving Instruction." Both formative (teacher improvement) and summative (personnel decisions) aspects of the topic are addressed by the materials collected. The 52 selected items, most of which were…

Two methods of teacher evaluation, summative evaluation and formative evaluation, are examined. The summative theory calls for an assessment of teaching competence on the basis of which judgments may be made on matters pertaining to promotion, tenure, merit salary increments, or dismissal. Summative evaluation is strongly supported because it…

Issues pertaining to the validity of student ratings of teaching effectiveness are considered, and research results are evaluated. The following extraneous variables that affect student ratings but are not under the control or influence of the teacher are examined: class size, initial student motivation, academic field, teacher characteristics,…

A study of the efficiency of faculty of the six schools of the Open University of the United Kingdom was conducted through informal interviews. To review methods of developing new packages of course materials, 20 topics were focused upon, and the interviewee was encouraged to talk freely and fully. The interviews may have given the opportunity for…

Teaching and job responsibilities of full-time English teachers at St. Louis Community College at Meramec are specified in this document in order to help instructors improve the quality of instruction, to provide reliable evaluation standards, and to aid in staff selection. They also demonstrate the diversity of teacher functions and provide…

This report describes the main field test of Minicourse 18: Teaching Reading as Decoding. The purposes of the main field test were: (1) to evaluate the effects of the course on the participating teachers, (2) to evaluate four reteach treatments on teacher skill acquisition, (3) to compare scores for central city and suburban teachers, and (4) to…

Discusses the idea of "master-students," where college professors from two different disciplines take each other's courses. Describes the experiences of an English professor and a chemistry professor who became master-students in each other's classes. Suggests this as a technique for improving teaching and understanding student problems. (TW)

Describes the harmful effects of administrators' attitudes of denigrating education, scholarship, and professional activities of the faculty in community colleges and suggests that the faculties counteract this pervasive influence by doing their own research. (EL)

This booklet offers a brief history of teacher lore, examines its theoretical bases, and summarizes its professional value, discussing how preservice teachers, inservice teachers, and others can use teacher lore for professional development. Teacher lore, or teacher narrative, includes fiction and nonfiction, oral storytelling, print, film,…

This document responds to the components of North Carolina's Excellent Schools Act that pertain to mentoring. The first section includes tools for the selection of mentors: a listing of mentor selection criteria, a mentor nomination form, a faculty survey instrument for mentor candidates, interview questions for mentors, a mentor application form,…

This publication is designed to improve college instruction at the undergraduate level. Intended to be used as a tool box, it is a concise compilation of hundreds of teaching techniques and formats, classroom activities and exercises, suggestions to enhance instructor-student rapport, guidelines for assignments and papers, and tips for teaching…

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…