Professional learning is a social enterprise where peers rely on the expertise and support of one another to adopt innovative practices. Reciprocal interactions in a community of practice, where teachers take responsibility for each other's learning and development, may provide an effective means of supporting situated professional learning. We…

The availability of several effective teaching models that allow the teaching of thinking skills and subject matter simultaneously proves that intellectual processes and content are not incompatible subjects for instruction. These models differ significantly from traditional models, and adequate training in them will require a thorough commitment…

Braskamp uses four questions to focus his discussion on the improvement of faculty evaluation: (1) Why do we assess? (2) What are the standards and criteria of quality and effectiveness? (3) What do we assess? (4) How do we assess? (JM)

Ory emphasizes four processes in assessing faculty: examining the craft of teaching; faculty members reflecting on the quality of and standards for their work; receiving feedback from others with the expectation that faculty will improve and assessing the work of others by focusing on the value of the work. (JM)

Argues that, for problem-based learning (PBL) to succeed, a sound program of staff development is required and describes the introduction of PBL into Nursing and Midwifery curricula at the University of Dundee (Scotland) including key components and evaluatory evidence to support its efficacy. (DB)

This paper attempts to clarify the field of teacher development by proposing a classification of approaches to teacher development that include the main theoretical models currently cited. The four approaches discussed include cognitive-structural, skill acquisition, reorientation of concerns, and life cycle. (Author/SM)

Through colleague consultation, teachers develop a collaborative relationship conducive to interclass visitation, observation, and discussion. This helps teachers to become more critical and reflective of their teaching. Clinical supervision is suggested as a method of helping teachers find meaning in their teaching. (Author/DF)

Much of the school reform and restructuring literature has focused on the need to improve or totally restructure teaching practice in order to create schools that effectively prepare children for the future. Recent literature on learning in the workplace and teacher learning and change provide some insight into the reasons why many teacher change…

This report contains the citations for the 1997 Hesburgh Awards for successful, innovative faculty development programs to enhance undergraduate teaching. The University of Missouri-Columbia, General Education Program, was the program judged to have best met the three award criteria: significance of the program to higher education, appropriate…

This paper describes paradigms for research into school learning conducted at the primary/secondary and tertiary levels. Paradigms discussed include the Process-Product paradigm, the Mediating Process paradigm, the Classroom Ecology paradigm, J. Carroll's Model of School Learning, B. Bloom's Mastery Learning model, and the multilevel causal…

Discusses in-service teacher training in England, proposing alternative models of professional knowledge which could change and improve teachers and teaching. The article considers alternative models derived from work with teachers and students in England and explains how such models can help in establishing intercultural education courses for…

The aim of this paper is to develop a dynamic view of training and professional development of teachers, focusing particularly on the training of less effective and innovative teachers and on the relationship between teachers' self-efficacy and teacher learning. Teachers' self-efficacy is regarded as the extent to which teachers expect they can…

This study examined ways in which teachers use their own experiences and those of their colleagues to become better teachers, based on case studies of a group of eight physics teachers engaged in collaborative action research. Two perspectives on teaching that have framed other inquiries are first discussed: the teacher knowledge perspective,…