The call for highly qualified teachers that can improve student literacy performance has led to increased attention to job-embedded approaches to professional learning. Such approaches call for intensive, on-going efforts that include coaching and feedback (National Staff Development Council, 2001; American Educational Research Association, 2005)…

Drawing from the online experiences of teachers across the United States who participated in online professional development courses, this article focuses on what educators/participants consider to be the roles and responsibilities of the online instructor. They see the online instructor as facilitator, model, planner, coach, and communicator.…

This is the second in a series of reports that examines the role of coaches in facilitating school change. The report explains that as coaching, or external facilitation of school change, becomes a more widespread strategy for helping schools undergo comprehensive restructuring to create more professional collaborative cultures and to increase…

This report presents evaluation findings regarding the implementation and effectiveness of the Academics 2000, Cycle VIII grant in AISD during the 2001-2002 school year.

In the fall of 2000 the Department of Sociology at North Carolina State University (NCSU) implemented a Phase IV Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) initiative. The goal of this program was (and is) to ensure that doctoral students anticipating entry into a professional position be prepared for all expectations associated with faculty life in a wide…

Teachers with seven years of teaching experience or less (n = 10) participating in a large-scale mathematics professional development program in the United States were interviewed. The goal of this qualitative study was to better understand less experienced teachers' reactions to professional development and professional support in the teaching…

In spring 2005, the Educational Policy Institute was contracted by an anonymous, non-profit, Missouri-based organization to conduct analysis of data from a series of focus groups of 7th, 9th, and 11th grade students. The purpose of the focus groups, conducted by the Change and Innovation Agency in Jefferson City, was to examine the postsecondary…

For anyone in a leadership position, responsible for the performance of others, there is always an obvious concern with the quality of the work performed and the adherence to the mission, vision, values and culture of the organization. Traditional methods of assuring quality performance include some form of performance appraisal, giving feedback…

The authors draw on data from weekly e-mail responses to a questionnaire completed by beginning teachers placed in one-year, paid, internships. Interns were assigned mentors who responded every several weeks, also via e-mail, to a questionnaire about the interns and their development. Data from 23 interns were analyzed. Seven themes were…

In education, mentoring is typically understood as a one-on-one relationship between a novice teacher and a more experienced, competent colleague. Through the mentoring relationship, the veteran teacher guides the new teacher into the profession. In this article, the author supports an alternative conception of mentoring by describing how a group…

This paper will explore emerging benefits of telecollaboration and telementoring through an examination of the literature, a reflection on current practices at the University of Virginia and the University of South Florida, and a forecast proposal for potential seamless integration of technology with teacher preparation and training in schools of…

Can sharing drawings about pedagogical issues develop trust in a mentoring situation? What other themes and feelings emerge when non-traditional forms of mentoring are utilized? During a seven-week student-teaching period, a student art teacher and experienced art teacher drew and wrote in a sketchbook about daily teaching experiences. These…

Desiring to overcome sharp feelings of disconnection, a year-long participatory action research seminar involving both clinical and tenure-track teacher education faculty was formed. Working in teams with tenure-track faculty support, clinical faculty set research questions but they were reluctant to assume project leadership. In part, because of…

University admissions for professional degree programmes has become very competitive in many countries in the world. While students have to score high aggregate of marks at the university entrance examinations, other criteria may also have to be met. As a result, additional private coaching outside the normal high school system is being sought by…

Cross-cultural mentoring relationships can be sites of struggle around the issues of race, class and gender. In addition, the mentor/protege relationship offers micro-cosmic insight into power relations within western society. The authors of this paper, a black woman associate professor and a white male professor, use the example of their…