Researchers have endorsed teacher collaboration within a professional learning community (PLC) that is focused on student learning. Despite these research-based endorsements, several Algebra 1 teachers in a southeastern high school implemented components of a PLC with little or no results in student achievement. The purpose of this study was to…

As evidenced by the poor mathematics performance in American schools, specifically in the school district in the current study, providing identical educational opportunities for diverse students does not necessarily increase academic achievement for everyone. Differentiation is an instructional method that has been found to be successful in…

This article is part of a larger research project on professional development, and more specifically the emergence of "professional knowledge" among pre-service teachers. The intent here is to analyze recognition phenomena in supervisory discussions. We consider recognition of pre-service teachers' discourse as a condition for the emergence of…

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…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report the formative evaluation results from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development Healthy School Communities (HSC) pilot project. Design/methodology/approach: This study utilized 11 HSC pilot sites in the USA (eight sites) and Canada (three sites). The evaluation question was…

The National Association of Secondary School Principals' Selecting and Developing the 21st Century Principal program is a formative assessment identifying skills linked to effective leadership, and it is based on a simulation designed to replicate a school principal's day. The Long Island School Leadership Center became a site for this program in…

A qualitative case study of one rural elementary school in Ohio examined how faculty, administrators, students, and parents experienced Ohio's Value-added model. The findings generated from looking at planning and professional development to implementation of the model generated a close- up of a successful approach to helping teachers use multiple…

The purpose of this qualitative single case study was to describe current instructional policies and practices in a one-day treatment center in North Carolina for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). The following research questions guided the study: (1) What are the curriculum policies, practices, and philosophies of day…

To support new teachers during the challenging transition to the profession, schools and districts across the country often establish induction supports such as professional development, mentorship, and coaching. This report describes the findings of a research study designed to examine how the Chicago implementation of the New Teacher Center…

This article develops the analogy of the "black box" in relation to different levels of a professional development project to understand the nature of learning that results in higher student achievement. Principles of formative assessment are used to frame the on-going, evidence-informed inquiry into learning that operated at each level…

Twenty teachers working in elementary and secondary schools were interviewed from 2 school districts in southern Ontario, Canada about their understanding and use of particular formative assessment strategies. Analysis of the interviews followed a constant comparison method and revealed a variety of emerging themes. Results suggested an imbalance…

This paper investigates how the use of Pupil Views Templates (PVTs), a tool designed to elicit, record and analyse the development of students' awareness of their own learning processes, supports teachers' professional learning. This paper reports on a three-year collaborative practitioner enquiry project involving more than 30 primary and…

Schools are required to meet a range of students' learning needs and effective school leadership is needed for the implementation of pedagogical practices responsive to the challenges of increasing student diversity and academic accountability. Literature on differentiated instruction and its constituent elements suggests differentiation results…

Background: Through its Children First initiative, New York City policymakers promoted collaborative inquiry as a process for helping administrators and teachers use student data to improve instruction and raise student achievement. Since 2007, city schools were expected to engage higher proportions of faculty in the inquiry work each year.…

This evaluation used a change transition model to explore the processes of development of a three-phase professional programme devised by two teams of researchers to support teachers' expertise in six domains of science teaching. The full programme operated over two years. Interviews with developers at the end of each phase (21 interviews) and…