Teaching graduate students to conduct evaluations is typically relegated to evaluation methods courses. This approach misses an opportunity for students to collaboratively use evaluation skills to explore content. This article examines a graduate course, Issues in Adult Basic Education, in which students learned evaluation methods concurrently…

Research has been conducted to identify and analyze how schools are determining that the activities of their Professional Learning Community (PLC) are directly tied to student achievement as there is currently a gap in the existing literature with regards to this topic. For the purpose of this study, a "successful" PLC was defined as one…

Performance appraisal is necessary for summative decisions about employees, such as merit pay and promotion. The research reported here describes Extension agent perceptions of their performance appraisal system. The population studied consisted of all Tennessee Extension agents (N = 312). Surveys were completed by 218 respondents, for a completed…

In this Exemplars case, the fifth and final under the direction of the current coeditors, the authors present a reflective account of an ongoing, complex, multiyear, multinational monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system conducted for African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD), an international development program. The…

This study investigates the beliefs and practices of seven high school chemistry teachers as a result of their participation in a year-long inquiry professional development (PD) project. An analysis of oral interviews, written reflections, and in-class observations were used to determine the extent to which the PD affected the teachers' beliefs…

The culture of the "enabling school" is investigated within the context of the government's policy of continuing professional development and postgraduate professional development for teachers in England. This context is problematised by considering teachers' conceptualisations of their professional autonomy, status and personal…

Formative evaluation and its associated methodology of reflection on practice are used extensively in academic staff development. In reflecting on formative evaluation processes in both more traditional and newer programmes conducted at a university of technology, a number of variables reported in the literature were observed to have influenced…

One objective of the U.S. Department of Education's (ED) School Improvement Grants (SIG) and Race to the Top (RTT) program is to help states enhance their capacity to support the turnaround of low-performing schools. This capacity may be important, given how difficult it is to produce substantial and sustained achievement gains in low-performing…

School impact media studies indicate that a well-staffed and funded school library media program with a certified school library media specialist (SLMS) positively correlates with increased student achievement. SLMS must have a shared understanding of their roles and responsibilities to positively impact student success. In an effort to determine…

The study examines the professional development of junior-high-school teachers participating in the Israeli "Katom" (Computer for Every Class, Student and Teacher) Program, begun in 2004. A three-circle support and training model was developed for teachers' professional development. The first circle applies to all teachers in the…

School systems must undertake change to facilitate student achievement. Teachers who serve as resources for teachers and administrators, the teacher specialists, are being used by some school systems to implement change despite a deficit of professional studies exploring their effectiveness for this purpose. This mixed methods case study utilized…

In this wide-ranging interview with Educational Leadership, Stanford University Professor of Education Linda Darling-Hammond discusses the kind of preparation and support new teachers need to survive their critical first years in the classroom. Among her central recommendations are more intensive mentoring that lasts through the first year of…

With policymakers across the country proposing questionable ways to evaluate teachers, it's time to listen to those who know what supports and systems are needed to enhance instruction: teachers. This article explores the work of professional educators--not just their accomplishments, but also their challenges--so that the lessons they have…

This qualitative research focuses on 15 teachers' sensemaking and implementation of standards-based mathematics curricular reform in Chicago Public Schools. Data for this study include interviews, focus groups, and observations of teacher during the course of their implementation of one of four standard-based mathematics curriculum adopted by the…

Teachers are held responsible for equitable and excellent education in classrooms that are increasingly diverse culturally and student academic ability. The purpose of this study was to better understand the attitudes and experiences of teachers in heterogeneous classrooms regarding teacher preparation in order to implement new research-based…