This article seeks to deepen the understanding of the revised Essential 4 by describing the key aspects and examples of the Second Edition of the National Association for Professional Development Schools (NAPDS) Nine Essentials. The key concepts that are brought forth in the revised Essential 4 include "Reflective Practice;"…

The "purpose" of this study was to understand the perspectives of recently retired principals who were mentors to new school leaders in a high-need urban school district. Mentors reflected on the mentoring needs and challenges faced by new school leaders while also reflecting on their own careers as school principals. This study was…

The paper includes the results of a descriptive case-study in which a university-based Hungarian practice school is compared to the model of Professional Development School. Data sources include school teachers (N=102), university educators of subject methodology (N=20) and pre-service teachers doing their group practice at the university's…

There are few conversations about teaching these days that do not include talk about teacher quality. Yet, within the conversations about improving teacher quality, the dialogue is often political--consumed with one-dimensional solutions for improving teacher quality, such as linking teacher pay to student performance. Absent from the pervasive…

Collaborative action research partnerships create rich opportunities for the professional development of teachers and classroom reform. This paper reports results from two action research projects. The first was a collaboration between the author and a seventh-grade mathematics teacher who wanted to change his mathematics teaching in an effort to…

Epistemic thought is a process that focuses on the origin of human knowledge. This paper describes inquiry-based leadership, a viewpoint that integrates epistemic thought with the realities of school administration. The paper examines the art of teacher inquiry and its link to Inquiry-Based Leadership (IBL), and presents a school-university…

Problems and solutions associated with a five-year university-school collaboration to implement partner schools are outlined. A sample of findings from research and external evaluation is given as preliminary evidence of the partner school concept's feasibility. (IAH)

This report describes an experiment to provide an inservice program involving problem solving and inquiry, in line with the new Scottish National Guidelines in mathematics, that would have a lasting effect on teachers. The program featured two stages: (1) In the first year teachers were involved in a pair of workshops, were visited at their…

Examines events that facilitated collaborative school-university research within a Professional Development School (PDS). Analysis of observation notes from school visits, records of schools' work with university liaisons, and surveys of PDS and school faculty indicated that PDS teachers highly valued sharing knowledge with colleagues. Several…

This research project investigated a collaborative effort between a university teacher education program and a public junior high school in a program to integrate technology into the school curriculum. The university-public school partnership defined inquiry and professional development as two of its primary functions. Several lesson plans were…

A report is given of a collaborative 3-year teacher education improvement project which was begun in 1986. Project participants included the Catholic University Department of Education, District of Columbia and Montgomery County (Maryland) public schools, Washington, D.C. parochial schools, and a private school. The aim of the project was to…

One of five articles in the second section "Deepening Relationships through PDS Brings Change in Practice," this article details some of the hard-to-discuss problems that occur in professional development school partnerships, suggesting that discussion cases can help facilitate communication. A sample discussion case is presented, with suggestions…

Investigated the impact of Professional Development School (PDS) activities on elementary student writing and mathematics achievement (using collaborative teacher research) after 2 years of school and university researcher participation, describing processes and outcomes of two PDS writing and mathematics skills programs. Focus group interviews…

The School of Education and Professional Studies at Central Connecticut State University was funded to improve student achievement through school-based reform and to enhance the preparation of teachers who work in urban schools. The vehicle for enacting these goals was the creation of professional development schools near the university. One…

Eastern Michigan University's Collaborative School Improvement Program initiates school-level improvement by training teachers and administrators in collaborative decision making. A survey of professional staff in 14 participating schools revealed the importance of focusing on student learning outcomes, addressing attainment obstacles, and…