This 18-month ethnographic study provides a snapshot of teachers' use of space and voice as they work in a newly formed Professional Development School (PDS) committed to shared responsibility for teacher education and developing a culture of simultaneous renewal through inquiry. The study identified the tensions produced when a PDS functions…

Researcher-teacher collaboration occurred during the design and implementation of self-management instruction for two middle school students with different disabilities and for two different target behaviors. One student with physical disabilities was taught to increase safe hall travel during school transitions, and the other student with…

This paper argues that conditions supporting dissemination (sharing) of teachers' learning are necessary for school change and organizational learning. Based on a qualitative study that explored dissemination of teachers' learning within a multi-school computer technology project, the paper identifies 43 factors that motivate teachers' sharing and…

This article describes an analytic approach for situating teachers' instructional practices within the institutional settings of the schools and school districts in which they work. The approach treats instructional leadership and teaching as distributed activities and involves first delineating the communities of practice within a school or…

A group of teacher educators adopted collaborative teamwork to cope with a too large teaching load. The authors reflect on the experience of working together in a critical friendship group, highlighting the role that conversation plays in this process. The experience of a collaborative approach and its impact on teaching and professional…

Reforming traditional practice has proven to be a difficult and controversial task in the field of education. If a change to the school's organizational structure is not implemented in the appropriate manner, it can severely damage the reputation of the leadership team and possibly cost the administrator his or her job. Considering the possible…

This article describes how partnerships among general and special education teachers and speech-language pathologists operate within a writing lab approach to enhance curriculum-based language instruction and intervention for students with and without disabilities. Areas discussed include (a) gaining invitations into the classroom, (b)…

Facilitating schools to develop more collaborative cultures is seen as one of the major challenges in promoting teachers' continuing professional development. This article recounts how a fifteen-month project designed to promote greater collegial learning and professional development emerged and developed within one school. Evidence suggests that…

Reflective dialogue is still very much an unexplored area in teacher education in Pakistan. This article presents findings of a study that engaged four teachers in the process of reflective dialogue in a school in Karachi, Pakistan. It explores the teachers' response to the process and possible reasons. It also examines the role played by those…

In this article, the authors who are an interdisciplinary team of middle school educators collaboratively developed and implemented an interdisciplinary unit designed to help middle school students: (1) think like mathematicians and scientists; (2) develop specific areas of expertise in math and science; and (3) use literature as a tool to learn…

Traditionally, in Germany, the centralized state school administration oversees the staffing of its schools. Specifically, the administration assigns new teachers to designated schools. During the last decade, some German "Bundeslander" have established new procedures for hiring new teachers. Since 1997 the Bundesland…

When teachers at Madison Elementary School in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin attended a class to examine test data, they started a change process that led the whole school to learn differently--from teachers to students. This article discusses on how whole-faculty study teams have created stronger professional connections and collaboration between teachers…

Promises to staff usually evolve around issues of working conditions and individual autonomy, but a staff's collective commitments to students can serve as a powerful catalyst for improved professional practice. In this article, the authors present two schools--Penasquitos Elementary School in San Diego, California, and Levey Middle School in…

Science education reform requires innovative professional development initiatives. Here we report the success of an interdisciplinary learning circle that met regularly over the course of a year to explore pedagogical theory and develop action research projects with the goal of improving critical-thinking skills in math and science undergraduates.…

At its core, a curriculum is what happens among learners and teachers in the classroom. TESOL's Language Curriculum Development Series describes how teachers, curriculum developers, and administrators have developed, adapted, or renewed a language curriculum. In doing so, they have responded creatively and realistically to learners' needs. The…