This study examined the perceptions of educators to determine if they felt that they were adequately prepared to teach in a high poverty school setting. The participants, educators from four school districts, completed a survey based on their perceptions of their own level of self-efficacy and preparedness to work in high poverty schools. The…

Many game-based learning (GBL) researchers working in K-12 educational settings have supported the incorporation of gaming technologies into classroom practice, but little has been communicated about the effect of incorporating GBL into practicing K-12 educators' professional development. This review is a critical appraisal of the quantity and…

This study explored and analyzed a purposeful sample size of five teachers from four districts on the perceptions of teachers in first and second grade regarding their participation in whether or not professional development provided through Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) grant activities influenced their implementation of…

Using social realist theory and critical discourse analysis, this article examines a number of discourses which construct academic staff attitudes to teaching and learning in their disciplines. It seeks to explain academics' resistance to engaging in activities aimed at professionalising academic practice. The research described in the article…

This evaluation study examined the effectiveness, efficiency, and impact of the statewide master plan for professional development (PD Master Plan) by investigating seven questions. With regard to effectiveness, (1) What was the level of implementation for the PD Master Plan, overall and by individual providers? (2) What were the impediments, if…

Schools across the country are implementing professional development initiatives with the intent of improving student outcomes. Over the past twenty years the criterion for measuring professional development has shifted from identifying what schools quantify to how professional development impacts students' performance. Teachers are under a…

The requirement in the USA of the No Child Left Behind Act (2002) that every classroom has a highly qualified teacher, coupled with the current high-stakes testing environment, creates the need for all principals to be knowledgeable about quality staff development systems. One aspect of effective staff development is whether teachers adopt the…

We analyse two narratives of teacher-facilitator teams producing elementary science curricula and disseminating them to their peers. We draw on these stories to interpret how teacher-facilitators position themselves with respect to other educators (e.g. peer teachers and development-team members), to real and imagined students and parents, to…

The process of implementing change is extremely complicated, particularly when multiple innovations are being introduced simultaneously. Conflicting views exist regarding provincial versus local priorities, and available resources are declining. This report is a summary of a Master's thesis that analyzed the implementation process employed in 13…

One of the most crucial roles of the school leader is to develop and maintain the professional level of the staff which he/she supervises. It is generally agreed upon that the desired school culture is one in which the focus is on the development of a community of learners. Consequently, intellectual growth can never happen for children unless it…

Modeled after the Bay Area Writing Project, the Inland Area Writing Project has for the past 6 years identified exemplary teachers of writing and trained them to be teacher/consultants who can plan and implement their own staff development programs in the teaching of writing. The training program consists of an intensive 5-week summer workshop and…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect Teachers Teaching Teachers, a staff development project incorporating peer coaching methods, had on public school educators' attitudes and beliefs toward various personal and professional components. Forty-four teachers, administrators, and other school personnel participated in the Teachers…

This practicum project used organized professional development to increase involvement of teachers at a preK-8 school in the school's reform process. All members of the school community actively participated in planning, data collecting, and sharing of pertinent reform information. The 3-month staff development intervention consisted of three…

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)

Noting that staff guidance is an integral part of successful program administration, child- and youth-care administrators should understand the developmental level of the workers within the setting, note that workers' behavior may be attributed to individual traits or developmental characteristics, and understand that their reactions to workers'…