Interviews with participants in a professional development school identified expectations of the partnership (student focus, better trained teachers), positive outcomes (real-world experience for student teachers, extra attention for students, professional growth for participating teachers), and problems (communication between school and…

Evaluates Niagara County Community College's efforts to promote instructional improvement and thereby increase students' course completion rates, students' satisfaction with learning and outcomes, and teachers' professional skill levels. Reports effects on faculty motivation and other outcomes and discusses the use of interviews in the evaluation…

Examines the effectiveness of Discipline-Based Art Education staff development and a graduate course provided by the Alaska Center for Excellence in Art Education. Features progress reports from nine organizations that hosted development sessions and 90 educators who completed the course. Discusses precedents for the study, relevant research,…

Project Texas is a professional development program for K-8 teachers from districts serving underrepresented populations in order to develop teacher knowledge of Texas' eco-regions. The program provides a meaningful context modeling integration of field experiences, investigative activities, problem-solving strategies, and cooperative learning…

Preparation for school leadership has become a major global educational issue since the late 1990s. In Hong Kong, the establishment and implementation of school-based management in the 1990s have made significant demands on principals. In 1999, a leadership development and training programme for serving and aspiring principals was initiated by the…

Today's school counselors are faced with demands to demonstrate the impact and effectiveness of their counseling programs. Twenty-eight school counselors from a large Southwestern school district participated in a program evaluation training workshop designed to help them develop evaluation skills necessary for demonstrating program…

A year-long collaborative action research project used networked technologies to connect researchers at a university-based online professional development program and a group of practitioner researchers based in a range of schools and educational agencies in several countries. They studied the process and effects of online professional development…

In 2006, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Early Learning Initiative (ELI) to improve the school readiness of Washington State's children through three main strategies: (1) development of high-quality, community-wide early learning initiatives in two communities; (2) enhancement of statewide systems that support early…

When the author was a little girl, her father told her the story of how he once saw the great Harry Houdini escape from a straight jacket. In the early 1900s, Houdini fascinated thousands of people by performing feats of life-threatening daring and agility. Houdini was a professional in the traditional sense: he acted alone, kept his trade secrets…

The effectiveness of Tennessee EdTech Launch (TnETL), a statewide technology program designed to meet the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandate, was investigated in this matched treatment-control quasi-experimental study. The goal of the program was to provide full-time, on-site technology coaches to prepare teachers to create lessons that engage…

A summer program was created for undergraduates and graduate students that teaches bioinformatics concepts, offers skills in professional development, and provides research opportunities in academic and industrial institutions. We estimate that 34 of 38 graduates (89%) are in a career trajectory that will use bioinformatics. Evidence from…

On April 1, 1983, thirteen "enthusiastic, daring, creative and resourceful" (Landstrom, 1993, p. 113) Canadian distance educators who were attending an international conference on telecourses gathered in a hotel room in Washington DC to socialize. They left that evening with a dream: a Canadian distance education association. Now, after…

A study examined the impact and cost effectiveness of a principal leadership-development program. The program is based on one-on-one interaction between the participant and a leadership analyst, and it includes the following components: assessment, feedback, and construction of a one-year personal development plan. A survey mailed to 195 Illinois…

A study was conducted to ascertain the extent to which colleges and universities are integrating new technology education curriculum activities into teacher inservice and professional development programs. Information was gathered by developing a questionnaire, pilot testing it, and mailing it to 50 selected colleges and universities for…

This report documents and evaluates the activities of the Urban Mathematics Collaborative (UMC) project during the 1988-89 school year. UMC seeks to improve mathematics education in inner-city schools and identify new models for the professional development of mathematics teachers by supporting collaboration among mathematics teachers and…