Rather than merely dusting and polishing the old comfy stuff, these authors have spent 35 years trying to find out how people can learn to use new curriculums and ways of teaching. They have done some studies that would meet high standards of design, learned from peering at correlations, and stumbled on important things while teaching kids and…

The purpose of professional learning is for educators to develop the knowledge, skills, practices, and dispositions they need to help students perform at higher levels. It is not a simple matter to connect the dots between high quality professional learning and student outcomes. However, the theory of action that drives the standards, and indeed…

In her full essay exploring the Leadership standard in "Reach the Highest Standard in Professional Learning: Leadership," author Karen Seashore Louis offers keen insights into the question of how leaders affect the learning of other adults in a school. She writes particularly about how "school leaders can create a school culture in…

Content teachers responsible for the instruction of English learner students will perceive myriad challenges when it comes to English learner students in the mainstream. School leaders can play a pivotal role in supporting and mitigating some of these challenges by recognizing what some of the pitfalls and issues might be for content teachers…

Educators across the nation have been responding to the push for content-area literacy instruction in their systems. While the press for higher academic standards has sharpened national focus on the reading of complex, discipline-specific informational texts, educators have been grappling with how to help science, social studies, and vocational…

In this study of 16 teachers in two primary schools in the Netherlands, researchers built on findings from previous studies to demonstrate that a thoughtfully designed professional development program can be "effective and sustainable, if certain conditions are met" (p. 772) in changing teachers' knowledge, beliefs, perceived problems,…

The experiences in the school districts highlighted in this article clarify a set of broad goals that all professional learning communities can use to assess their effectiveness: (1) Culture; (2) Knowledge; (3) Practice; and (4) Achievement. These schools and districts have an ongoing commitment to all four goals. All of them have instituted…

To implement the Common Core State Standards, teachers will need a broader knowledge base, a more diverse tool kit for teaching and learning, and greater experience with teaching in a standards-based environment. The growth required over the next three years seems to be large. The author works in a district that has provided an ongoing, continual…

Today's education policy places a high priority on improving teacher quality and teaching effectiveness in U.S. schools. Standards-based professional learning requires teachers to have deep subject knowledge and the most effective pedagogy for teaching the subject. States and school districts are charged with establishing teacher professional…

Throughout the past two decades, Boston Public Schools has seen strong, steady improvement, recently demonstrated through student gains on NAEP's Trial Urban District Assessment in math and recognized through the award of the 2006 Broad Prize for Urban Education. Teacher leaders have played an important role in Boston's improvement. As team…

Education policy in the province of Alberta is set by Alberta Education, a ministry led by the province's minister of education. There are two key policies or ministerial orders that guide professional learning in Alberta. The Teaching Quality Standard outlines the knowledge, skills, and attributes that teachers are expected to possess. The…

In this article, the authors argue that district and school leaders continue to struggle with the apparent dichotomy between "traditional" and "reform-oriented professional development," especially with increased presence of professional learning communities in schools and their use in replacing other forms of professional development. Traditional…

The best science teachers are not only experts in teaching and knowledgeable about science content, but they are also great at teaching science. They have specialized teaching knowledge, including knowledge of effective pedagogical practices in science, student difficulties with understanding content, and curricular purposes. As a result,…

In this article, the author discusses some of the most serious challenges--intellectual, institutional, and political--that he sees for the future of professional learning in education. He states that one common solution to these challenges would be for educators to begin to act more like professionals. One thing is clear about the early stages of…

Describes a staff-development project that trains K-12 science teachers to use Interactive Multimedia Exercises (IMMEX) software, which expands teachers' content knowledge, teaching them about IMMEX and about how to create problem-solving exercises for diverse students. The paper examines project development and implementation, describes IMMEX…