An observer of Japanese teacher centers reports on their purpose, scope, and activities--using British and American centers as a frame of reference. (Author)

Examines data from three investigations of the impact of the Teachers' Active Learning Center (TALC)/Teacher Shelter, a program run in the San Francisco Bay Area. Notes ten features of the center that make it unique and successful. (RL)

Inspired by study of British teacher centres, an active learning center was developed based on the belief that emphasis on needs of individual teachers and voluntary teacher involvement in designing programs would lead to progress and classroom changes by providing practical group studies in a nonevaluative supportive atmosphere. (JD)

Teachers' centers are places and programs for staff development that are designed and used by inservice teachers of their own volition to fill their self-identified training and curriculum needs. Centers operate on two basic premises. First is the assumption that teachers, rather than educational researchers, can most accurately assess their own…