During their careers, teachers experience change in education policy, societal trends, and cultural shifts in pedagogical thought, requiring continual adaptation and innovation of their practices. Coupled with this is an assumed intrinsic desire to progress, whether as part of their own subject expertise, or with a view to taking on a role as…

This article theoretically develops and examines the outcomes of a pilot study that evaluates the PACKaGE Model of online Teacher Professional Development (the Model). The Model was created to facilitate positive pedagogical change within gifted education teachers' practice, attitude, collaboration, content knowledge, and goal effectiveness.…

An instructional model can unite school leaders, teachers, and students with shared goals, a shared understanding of how to reach the goals, and a shared vocabulary for discussing progress. In this paper, the authors present an introduction to instructional models and a leadership primer focused on helping school teams cohere around an initiative…

The purpose of this descriptive study was to examine teacher instructional dilemmas and opportunities that emerged when students worked with interactive computer-based simulation models during the High-Adventure Science (HAS) project. The intervention included the HAS digital curriculum, designed for grades 7-12. Each curricular unit was framed to…

With increased demand for improved early childhood education services, it is important to better understand the essential professional development resources that have the greatest impact on both teacher and child outcomes. This study compared the effectiveness of two teacher-training models in bilingual Migrant and Seasonal Head Start and Head…

In 1999, Ball and Cohen proposed a practice-based theory of professional education, which would end inadequate professional development efforts with a more comprehensive approach. Their work has been referenced over the past decade, yet there have been limited attempts to actualize their ideals and research their implications. In this article, I…

This study investigated a professional development model designed to improve teachers' inquiry teaching efficacy as well as the quality of their inquiry instruction through engaging teachers in practice-teaching and reflection sessions. The programme began with a two-week summer Institute focused on both inquiry pedagogy and science content and…

This research study examined whether and how professional development can help teachers design sequences of instruction that lead to improved science learning. The efficacy of three professional development programs and a control condition was compared in a cluster randomized trial involving 53 middle school science teachers from a single school…

Teachers' subject knowledge is recognized as an essential component of effective teaching. In the foreign language context, teachers' subject knowledge includes language proficiency. In New Zealand high schools, foreign languages (e.g. Chinese, French, German, Japanese and Spanish) have recently been offered to learners earlier in their schooling,…

In this study we take up challenges regarding researcher positionality, representation, and the construction of difference as a launching point to reflexively analyze our own practices within a research project exploring multilingualism, multiliteracies, and teacher development. Our data were drawn from a teacher study group we facilitated during…

The study of teaching and learning during the period of translating ideals of reform into classroom practice enables us to understand student-teacher-researcher symbiotic learning. In line with this assumption, the purpose of this study is threefold:(1) observe effects of the "Common Knowledge Construction Model" (CKCM), a conceptual…

Professional Development (PD) is an important tool in the field of education. Successful PD programs are those that include adult learning methods and opportunities for experiential learning and discussion. The university where this action research was conducted does not offer formal training to adjunct instructors. The adjunct instructors are…

Braskamp uses four questions to focus his discussion on the improvement of faculty evaluation: (1) Why do we assess? (2) What are the standards and criteria of quality and effectiveness? (3) What do we assess? (4) How do we assess? (JM)

The Developmental Teacher Evaluation Kit (DeTek) and the Texas Teacher Appraisal System (TTAS) are compared in this report. The DeTek model is based on objective analysis, diagnostic procedures to guide inservice planning and professional growth, an ongoing cycle of evaluation and development, and provision of diagnostic instruments. It is limited…