This article summarizes current research on effective professional development and offers a checklist for school leaders to use when designing learning opportunities for teachers. Effective professional development engages teachers in learning opportunities that are supportive, job-embedded, instructionally-focused, collaborative, and ongoing.…

The education of teachers in Canada typically consists of a sequence of non-integrated and partially alternating phases: pre-service university-based course work, pre-service school-based practica, job-imbedded induction, professional development sessions. This article proposes an integrative approach to the education of teachers that links these…

In this study we investigate how federal and state policy makers, and school principals are working to improve science teacher quality. Interviews, focused discussions, and policy documents serve as the primary data source. Findings suggest that both policy makers and principals prioritize increasing incentives for teachers entering the science…

Just as in the United States, political changes in the United Kingdom and other nations affect education policy. Louise Stoll, professor at the London Centre for Leadership in Learning, Institute of Education, University of London, offers a different view on policy in these excerpts from a conversation with Tracy Crow, Learning Forward's associate…

In this article, the author provides an overview of the "Getting Practical" training programme of professional development for all those involved with teaching practical science at primary, secondary, and post-16 levels. The programme is being led by the ASE, working with its co-ordinating partners: the Centre for Science Education,…

In recent years, regulatory boards have been asked to implement procedures to evaluate the competency of licensees throughout their careers, but the implementation of such competency measures is not on the immediate horizon. The responsibility for continuing competency, therefore, lies with each counselor. The work of Vygotsky is put forth as a…

A one week's school for training in the work of Co-operatives for Aborigines was held at "Tranby" by the Australian Board of Missions in February this year, organized by the Rev. Alfred Clint. It was the third successive year in which such a school was held. As in former years it consisted of two courses for two groups--one for…

Background: Formalised networks have become integral features of many education systems. Some networks have emerged organically as practitioners have sought to share and improve practice while others have been systematically planned and supported by policy makers in an attempt to raise the overall effectiveness of entire systems. However, despite…

When a company name means "giving life," the bar for learning and development programs is held high. In this article, the author describes what it takes to graduate from DaVita Academy, the soft skills training program dialysis services company DaVita offers all its employees. DaVita's chief executive officer, Kent Thiry, states that the Academy…

School leadership and teacher professional development are two well-defined fields of research within the education literature, yet there is relatively little research that has examined the leadership of teachers' professional development and learning. The study reported in this paper seeks to understand the experience of teachers who have…

Developing systems and opportunities for effective dialogue is critical if schools wish to help teachers work collectively. One school used Socratic seminars, structured conversations about selected texts. These seminars helped teachers to build relationships, share practice, and change curriculum and policy. The seminars also were critical to…

This article discusses how professional identity, conceptualised as "stories professionals tell about themselves at a specific moment in a specific context", can be portrayed to address its complexity as a dynamic, constructed, cognitive-emotional, multi-voiced, and dialogical concept. In order to construct a narrative-biographical method, eight…

This article discusses a critical challenge to current paradigms of continuing professional development within higher education institutions. A small group of higher-education-based teacher educators for the English post-compulsory sector describes and exposes the values and processes operating within a particular kind of professional development…

Language and, specifically, vocabulary development plays a critical role in early literacy development. This article describes Exceptional Coaching for Early Language and Literacy (ExCELL), which is a research-based, effective preschool program that focuses on developing Head Start enrollees' language and preliteracy skills. The ExCELL program…

Context: Few studies have examined pharmacists' level of patient care competence and need for continuous professional development in rural areas. Purpose: To assess North Dakota pharmacists' practice setting, perceived level of patient care competencies, and the need for professional development in urban and rural areas. Methods: A survey was…