The political and social rationale for the establishment of a national system of education in nineteenth-century Ireland has been the focus of considerable attention by scholars. Less attention has, however, been paid to teacher quality and school effectiveness within that system. Various efforts were made over the course of the century to address…

Why does professional learning for educators have such a mixed history? Why is it so hard to find solid research evidence of professional development programs that actually improve student learning outcomes? Part of the answer, writes Thomas R. Guskey, is that professional learning experiences for educators are rarely well planned. Consequently,…

The Global Writes (GW) model is a well-designed performing arts integrated literacy program that builds local and global support among students, teachers, and arts partners through the use of innovative technologies. Through local partnerships between schools and arts organizations forged by GW, classroom teachers and local teaching artists build…

A project of comprehensive inservice training for public school teachers and other personnel serving autistic children in North Carolina is described, and objectives and accomplishments are documented. In addition to summer training for teachers of autistic children, a series of four school-year workshops, and a 2-day period of winter inservice…

The Beginning Teacher Program in the Dade County Public Schools, Florida was developed to facilitate beginning teachers' attainment of specific generic teaching competencies through supervised support for a full school year. This report examines how many mandated and other procedures in the program were implemented and to what extent the teaching…

The purpose of this study was to determine the characteristics and perceived effectiveness of staff development practices in selected high schools in South Dakota. The review of literature and research related to staff development examined the following questions: What types of staff development practices are being employed to encourage and…

Universities continue to attract growing numbers of international students, so addressing how teachers deal with cultural diversity in the classroom has become increasingly important. This paper outlines the development of a program aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of teaching a university business course in the multicultural classroom.…

This paper discusses issues regarding the continuum of teacher preparation, particularly related to the alignment between degree programs in institutions of higher education and the professional growth of teachers. Guided by interviews with faculty at institutions that are aligning their master's degrees with National Board for Professional…

Proposals for reform in teacher education from major organizations are reviewed, summarized, and compared in this document. Concise analyses are presented of: (1) The Need for Quality (Southern Regional Education Board, 1981); (2) "Educating a Profession: Profile of a Beginning Teacher" (American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education…

To ascertain the degree of utilization of bilingual programs and the concerns and questions teachers may have about their implementation, the Division of Bilingual and International Education of the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory conducted a study which had four objectives relating to implementation of bilingual education programs in…

Five research studies on teacher planning are reviewed to discover how basic descriptive research can inform the practice. Seven findings are discussed: (1) Planning is important to teachers and generally invisible to everyone else; (2) Planning differs in practice from traditional prescriptions for planning; (3) Planning during the first weeks of…

This document provides a framework for the development of sustained and coordinated activities to support Kentucky teachers in learning the new roles and ways of teaching envisioned in the Kentucky Educational Reform Act. The report begins with a discussion of the context of reform, which is seen as consisting of two realities: new expectations…

The Collegial Evaluation Program leads to improved teaching by systematizing a way for teachers to obtain frequent, focused feedback from themselves, their students, and their colleagues. The process can be used by a single pair of teachers, a teaching team, a department, or an entire faculty. The purpose of this manual is to introduce the idea of…

First proposed in the fall of l98l, Pittsburgh's Schenley High School Teacher Center opened in the fall of 1983 with a comprehensive visiting teachers continuing education program involving contact with both resident and replacement teachers. To ensure full realization of its potential, the center uses a databased program to monitor its own…

This paper presents the three year process used in developing a teacher evaluation model for the Fort Worth (Texas) Independent School District. Based on Dr. Richard Manatt's School Improvement Model for Teacher Performance Evaluation, the purposes of the model were to improve teaching skills and to enable valid and reliable judgements concerning…