A planning and decision making process to facilitate research dissemination is illustrated with the example of a research project to study techniques for helping young handicapped children make the transition successfully from a special preschool to a public school kindergarten. General guidelines for planning dissemination are listed. Major…

The Model Teacher Induction Project (MTIP) is a research model program for the induction of beginning teachers. The program is being field tested along with a satellite project aimed at building and studying similar staff development programs. This paper reports on what has been learned from the MTIP and its satellite effort. A review of research…

A study examined the situation-specific program development strategies used in 47 different settings in the southwestern United States from January 1987 to January 1988. Specialized and elite interviews were administered to program developers to identify the approaches that are being used and to determine how they relate to the approaches…

This paper presents research findings that suggest a framework for developing essential support systems for beginning teachers, and describes two induction-year pilot projects, now in operation, based on those findings. One project is a Master's level course instituted in August 1987 at the Univesity of Houston; the other is a program…

Military psychology has made three major contributions to civilian education. The first is the systems approach which contains two complementary components: the conceptual and the empirical. The purpose of the conceptual approach is to understand nature to determine on what principle the system works; the purpose of the empirical approach is to…

It is suggested in this paper that practical arguments can be used in teacher education and staff development programs to introduce teachers to research-based practices. Practical arguments consist of three types of premises--value, empirical, and situational--that conclude with an action, or an intention to act. Such arguments are a useful way to…

Ways in which five teacher education program development teams used codified knowledge in educational literature were examined. Questions guiding the research included: (1) To what extent was educational literature considered during the deliberations of the program development teams? (2) What was the relationship between discussions of educational…

By 1969-70 it was clear to a number of development communities at both the state and federal level that education didn't need more programs, but more programs that work. Research and development products that address a wide variety of local needs were available. Over the past four or five years, more research and development funding has been used…

Prior to implementation of a supervisory staff development program, it is necessary to review current literature in the field of educational administration in order to define specific elements (domains) of the supervisory knowledge base. A qualitative research study involving a review of relevant literature yielded 13 primary domains or categories…

The task of developing teacher education programs which are fresh and innovative but which are also practical, sensitive to numerous restraining factors, and ultimately appropriate for preparing teachers in a specific area of the country is most complex. While an ever-growing body of professional literature is currently available, the valuable…

A description is given of a client-based approach to staff development that emphasizes ongoing professional growth and learning for teachers. The underlying assumptions of the program are that teachers possess important clinical expertise, and that professional learning is an adaptive, heuristic process that is long-term and nonlinear. The program…

This paper describes an emerging model for a comprehensive staff and organizational development program as a continuous and integral activity of the college, and discusses the role of the office of institutional research in such programs. A comprehensive program includes instructional development (instructional evaluation, diagnosis,…

Evidence indicates that lack of an explicit planning paradigm may account for widely reported unsystematic staff development and ineffective inservice teacher education programs. No published paradigm-related study provides a comprehensive framework for staff development. This paper synthesizes and develops a set of classes and models into a…

A description is given of the activities that occurred during the initial three years of planning and implementing a staff development program aimed at effective teaching and supervision in the Glendale, California, Unified School District. The report focuses on the third component of a five-year master plan, the planning and implementation of a…

Critics of Early Field Experience (EFE) for preservice teachers have cited a need for shifting focus away from logistical questions (e.g., quantity of time spent in the field, legal questions, administrative schedules) and toward promoting a critically meaningful educational experience for preservice teachers. This paper describes an EFE at…