Shares the results of a yearlong project of staff development where teachers kept a personal inquiry journal and participated in group activities. Finds the teachers grew together as a cohesive staff in learning to appreciate the inquiry process, to value the interests of their colleagues, to develop meaningful curriculum, and to enjoy the beauty…

The Project ACCESS (Adapting Curriculum Content for Exceptional Secondary Students) resource guide is designed to help regular classroom teachers provide successful experiences to mildly handicapped mainstreamed students through the adaptation of the curriculum. The concerns-based approach, which was used successfully by Project ACCESS, focuses on…

Discusses the effect of resistance on educational change, offering three steps for managing resistance (being aware of resistance, identifying sources and types of resistance, and developing and applying proactive strategies for managing resistance). Two sidebars describe 10 techniques to turn resistance into productive effort and discuss how to…

Describes the results from a recent study of school professional-development programs nationwide, which found that schools with effective programs consistently devoted time and energy to ensuring readiness among staff members by fostering five types of readiness: cultural, conceptual, personal, political, and resource readiness. A sidebar presents…

How educators think about and use time is woven into school cultures. School leaders must learn to read the culture and focus staff development on cultural issues affecting how people use time. This paper discusses cultures that nurture and wound and describes how to shape more nurturing cultures (read the school's culture, assess views of time,…

Presents strategies to help staff developers and classroom teachers work through the transition phase of a paradigm shift in educational practice, highlighting traditional assessment and grading models and noting the importance of allowing teachers time to reframe and integrate the new model, meeting in small groups to understand the transition.…

Staff development programs that use models and simulated practice, as well as feedback and coaching, can motivate English teachers to implement methods that research indicates are effective in teaching the various aspects of English. (HOD)

This dissertation summary discusses a study to determine the instructional competencies required by teachers of mainstreaming educational programs for handicapped secondary students. It also sought to establish the preferred staff development strategies and to identify the appropriate educators to conduct the retraining activities. Questionnaires…

Locally-based gifted education facilitators often find training their peers a formidable task. Guidelines for developing a successful inservice presentation include: establishing a positive attitude toward inservice and respect for presentors' credentials; matching content and activities to audience needs; rehearsing; providing time for guided…

Describes a program for formulating and implementing a staff development plan for technology based on experiences in the Lake Forest School District (Delaware). A comparison of pre- and posttest responses of teachers indicated improvement in skill levels and more positive attitudes toward the use of technology in education. The annual technology…

This paper identifies a number of factors that staff developers should consider in planning an effective program. A staff development program is considered to be effective if teachers adapt the material or content learned into their classrooms and retain the implementation over time, if teachers and administrators express satisfaction with the…

Staff development activities are most likely to succeed when the characteristics of those affected by the proposed changes are taken into consideration. Some teacher characteristics with related questions for administrators when planning staff development activities are discussed: traditionalism, need for recognition and participation, fear of…

Teachers' personal concerns related to the tension between a bureaucratic and a professional conception of teacher evaluation are seen as a major roadblock to school reform. Suggests strategies for using the Stages of Concern Model to address the concerns of teachers as they implement an educational innovation. (16 references) (MLF)

In an effort to help establish consistent opportunities for meaningful staff development, administrators and staff associated with three early childhood education programs funded by the Illinois State Board of Education were surveyed about their needs and interests. A questionnaire examined the extent of the respondent's knowledge of, or…

After addressing the problems inherent in developing staff improvement programs, the author offers starter planning steps for countering the energy drainage of teachers, countering the weak technology of teaching, and countering the feeling of aloneness of the teacher. (KC)