When carefully conceived, portfolios can significantly advance a teacher's professional growth and preserve evidence of exemplary teaching. More than a scrapbook or steamer trunk of eye-catching materials, a teaching portfolio is an ongoing, collaborative process that carefully and thoughtfully documents a set of accomplishments attained over an…

Personal narratives can reveal the nurturing dimension of the teaching role, characterize important changes in teachers' professional lives, and encourage more reflective practice. Such stories are not superfluous features of teachers' lives, but rather are basic to their continued individual and professional growth. (25 references) (MLH)

Like wildflowers blooming in the cracks of city sidewalks, reflective practice celebrates the organic over the artificial. Inquiry-oriented teaching, rejecting logical-positivist methods, engages teachers in a cycle of thought and action based on professional experience. Teachers subjected to quality control pressures reduce their teaching to the…

Video clubs give teachers opportunities to watch and discuss videotapes of their teaching and to develop new techniques for viewing and explaining classroom interactions. This approach is useful, because immediate responses are unnecessary, narrower views of classroom interactions are possible, and teachers can observe one another's practice. (MLH)

Teachers have the lowest level of preparation of an established profession. An analytic model of teacher education helps identify what the components and strategies of teacher education could and should be. (Author/MLF)

Beginning and veteran teachers are experiencing gross professional neglect. Teachers have been passive far too long about their own professionalism. The National Education Association is currently working with seven teacher-preparation institutions to reinvent teacher education and professional development. As Columbus, Ohio's peer-review program…

Experienced teachers in North Carolina benefit from an evaluation system that sets clear expectations and combines traditional evaluation with individual growth opportunities. The model is based on a regional educational laboratory's 10 years of experience in research and development in formative evaluation. Teacher self-assessment is a key…

To enhance effectiveness, teachers should analyze memories of successful learning experiences and teachers, share enthusiasm about their subject with students, blend plans for professional and personal growth, choose appropriate teaching and classroom-management styles, develop portfolios charting progress, participate in support groups, and build…

To explore how media analysis and production can be integrated into existing curricula, Clark University developed the Re-Visioning Project for secondary teachers. A humanities-centered institute was based on rich professional-development experiences, stressing learning and teaching activities, analysis of practice, and development of shared…