Teach For America's (TFA) shift over the past decade toward measuring and promoting its teachers' ability to boost student performance has caused the organization to reconfigure not just program directors' roles, but nearly all its other support components. It has overhauled its five-week summer training, known as "Institute," to incorporate the…

This study examines the impact of standards-based professional development on teacher efficacy and instructional practice of elementary and middle school science teachers. Professional development activities were conducted over a period of 3 years and included content courses as well as teacher involvement in professional learning communities.…

Ensuring quality teaching in every classroom across an entire system of schools--that's what a district leader's job is all about. A district leader's challenges are unique so "The Learning System" was created with that in mind. This issue contains: (1) What Works Around the World: Landmark Study Examines Professional Learning Abroad to Pinpoint…

Describe a program which encourages content area teachers to change their instructional styles during classroom discussions of textbook readings. Presents an associated five-stage model for linking teacher assessment procedures with professional growth. Notes that at each stage the model highlights what teachers experience and understand about…

Many researchers have addressed the professional development of teachers and the importance of the field experience component in the process of teaching effectiveness (Kowalchuk, 1999). A phased development model or paradigm used to address teachers' professional development and stages of effectiveness have been noted. Conceptual models of Field…

This book explores the complex world of the college writing teacher at work and is intended as a balance to current composition research that focuses almost exclusively on student writers, often ignoring the role the teacher plays in classroom development. The book contains data elicited from observation, surveys, and interviews with college…

This paper proposed to apply the perspective of constructivism to the classroom setting. Secondary science teachers and university personnel jointly developed and experimented with a variety of constructivist teaching strategies. Data were collected in the form of teacher anecdotes, audio and videotapes of lessons and student interviews, teacher…

The purpose of this document is to provide standards for the preservice professional preparation of teachers, to encourage inservice professional development, and to describe the necessary conditions for teaching and learning the social studies. These standards may be used as goals toward which the professional social studies teacher strives, as…