This article provides guidelines and strategies that can be employed to examine the experiences and perceptions of cooperative teaching teams, to validate successful collaborative practices, and to identify practices in need of revision. It discusses interviews and surveys, use of best practices checklists, conducting teaching observations, and…

Analyzed the collaboration of a first-grade novice teacher and her mentor teacher while the novice learned to teach mathematics in China. Found that the mentor contributed to novice teacher's progress by implementing a clear, consistent focus; modeling, analyzing, and reflecting on mathematics teachers; and defining and refining the zones of the…

Discusses potential problems with the current emphasis on various collaborative educational partnerships in early childhood education: (1) avoidance of more fundamental educational issues; (2) pretense that collaboration comes at no cost; and (3) diversion from the primary task. Presents examples of effective collaboration and one in which…

Traces the evolution of an elementary PDS that began as a project (the Learning Environment Project, or the Responsive Classroom Project). The project provides insight into the process and developmental stages of the partnership and moving toward the core commitments of the PDS. The idiosyncratic nature of relationships and the need to give them…

Examines the benefits of and lessons learned from one Professional Development School (PDSs) collaborative, noting that PDSs require significant amounts of effort. The paper focuses on two issues: the development of collaborative relationships and the quality development of PDSs so they will not be another passing reform but rather a lasting…

Since teachers have the most direct, sustained contact with students and considerable control over the teaching/learning climate, improving teachers' knowledge, skills, and dispositions is critical to enhancing student achievement. Professional development must also address schoolwide professional community and school program coherence. Two…

Describes the experiences of a successful high school English department that illustrate how teacher collaboration and interdependence can support teacher-driven growth and new instructional behaviors. Some of the department's guiding principals include destratifying, empowering, collaborating, unfettering, and recognizing. Important elements that…

Peer coaching empowers teachers as change agents when integrating innovative practices. This paper describes a model for peer coaching that encourages collegial interaction. Strategies for application include the following: selecting coaching teams, observing, describing implementation procedures, designing an observational instrument, monitoring…

Describes how the author, a reading specialist, served as a resource to students and teachers in a large high school by collaborating in different ways with different content area teachers. Shows how approaching this work as a partner rather than an expert, and enhancing teaching and learning for both teachers and students, can foster…

This article describes defining principles of inclusive education and provides important questions to ask in determining whether inclusive environments demonstrate these principles. Strategies for assisting educators in increasing educational environments that manifest the defining principles of inclusion are discussed including: promoting respect…

An itinerant special education teacher talks about her changing role in the development of social skills in young children with disabilities. A continuum of social skills interventions is explained and the importance of matching types of interventions to children and settings is stressed. The special challenges of the itinerant teacher role are…

Examined how high school teachers made meaning of a change process involving teamwork, interdisciplinary teaching, and block scheduling. Document analysis, observation, and interview data indicated that uncertainty and doubt were the pervading themes and had a critical effect on the teaching team's ability to move to interdisciplinary teaching.…

Examines the collaborative discourse practices of the Red River Writing Project Teacher Research Group as well as the processes by which this diverse group of classroom teachers, most with only limited experience in conducting research, developed into a discourse community of teacher researchers. Argues that the inquiry-oriented context fostered…

Delivery of related services in elementary schools varies between pull-out, push-in, and consultative models of service delivery. One method that proved successful at an elementary school in suburban Philadelphia was room sharing between the occupational therapist and the learning support teacher. The occupational therapy services were…

In this study I explored the reported effects of Literacy Collaborative, a whole-school literacy reform model, on teacher turnover through in-depth telephone interviews with 16 randomly sampled teachers. Although 8 of the teachers said Literacy Collaborative would have no effect on whether they stayed at or left their respective schools, the…