Professional development (PD) plays a crucial role in promoting teachers' linguistic competence and teaching quality, contributing to enhancing and maintaining sources of effective teachers, especially novice teachers with little teaching experience. Mentoring has emerged as a PD activity in which a novice teacher is mentored and directly…

Building Assets Reducing Risks (BARR) is a social emotional model that achieves academic outcomes through combining use of real-time student data with proven relationship-building strategies and intensive teacher collaboration to prevent course failure. BARR is a recipient of US Department of Education "Investing in Innovation (i3)"…

In 1999, the Georgia Department of Education received a grant to implement character education programs in 25 schools. The intent of the four year grant was to identify schools with best practices to serve as models for the dissemination of successful programs in the state. The study included 6 high schools, 7 middle schools, and 12 elementary…

With the continuing shift toward more decentralized, team-based work structures, efforts to improve quality are often linked to efforts to improve productivity. This ongoing restructuring of the workplace has important implications for technical education. Educators need to have an understanding of how and why organizations are pursuing these…

In recent years, interest in teamwork in the workplace has increased noticeably. For technical educators, the implications of this emphasis on employee involvement and cooperation are clear: they should begin developing the requisite skills in their students before they enter the work force. The skill sets that are needed--in effective…

The California Library Association has established a mentoring program to assist new or reentering librarians in establishing themselves in the profession. At the end of 3 years, the Mentor/Protege program had over 50 participating pairs of experienced and novice librarians. The program is described, and suggestions are given for implementing a…

Successful strategies used by a research team in establishing collegiality with school staffs so that research results could be succesfully implemented are described. During the initiation phase of a five-year project, four basic strategies were used to win over school staffs: paying attention to changing needs in the schools, building trust and…

Despite the fact that teacher evaluation has long been a factor in the areas of promotion and salary increase, the proposed statewide implementation of a teacher assessment plan (the Mississippi Teacher Assessment Instrument) has aroused anxiety in Mississippi's educational environment. It is therefore critical that principals actively promote a…

This paper presents a programmatic strategy to address unresolved student-student disagreements. The paper examines cultural norms--within training programs in academic settings--that contribute to interpersonal problems among students. It describes the following norms as related to some stated principles for negotiating diversity: (1) program…

In June 1993, revisions to the Pennsylvania School Code changed requirements for high school graduation from time spent in the classroom to mastery of 53 student learning outcomes. Districts were mandated to develop a strategic plan that included active community participation in implementing these new regulations. This study examined 17 districts…

This study examined how professional learning communities develop, using cross-subject teams within the context of HUMANITAS, a program designed to promote teachers' professional growth and effectiveness by creating a voluntary "community of learners" for teachers and students. Data were gathered from teacher interviews, team…

A questionnaire on use of cooperative learning was distributed to all faculty (76 respondents) in the College of Technical Careers at Southern Illinois-Carbondale (SIUC) and a sample of the membership (66 respondents) of the American Technical Education Association (ATEA). For both samples, the main use of groupwork was with laboratory…

This document reports on a study of the implementation of new teacher evaluation procedures as part of a consultant-designed teacher incentive plan in three elementary schols. The study focused on the impact of this effort on the role-related interests (job satisfactions and needs) of teachers and administrators. Teachers' role-related interests…

Two suburban school districts in Indiana were designated as inclusion pilot sites by the state legislature during the 1992-93 school year. Twenty-one students with moderate or severe disabilities and sensory impairments were integrated into their neighborhood schools. Observations of parents and general education teachers of these students were…