The purpose of this manual is to educate camp directors and camp personnel regarding government-recognized standard practices and procedures followed within the camp industry. These standards also provide a basis for voluntary accreditation of camps by the American Camping Association (ACA) beyond the minimum requirements of licensing. The manual…

Advocating the creation of a school climate that allows staff to determine the match between their current practice and standards of excellence, this booklet describes a process and attendant conditions for conducting self-study, one such process that shows promise. Based on experience, the booklet offers several lessons about the self-study…

Suggestions for improving teacher assessment of student performance are presented in this paper, with attention to ways in which superintendents can help. Suggested activities include pre- and post-observation conferences, a review of the teacher's plan book, and development of a professional growth plan. Because teachers as a group often lack…

An analysis of five journalism books published between 1867 and 1911 provides journalism and mass communication educators and textbook authors with insight into what their earliest predecessors considered important. Strong arguments exist for each of the following five books to receive consideration as the first or oldest news reporting textbook…

Professional development is an emerging view of faculty development that places teachers in charge of their own professional growth. The emergence of Total Quality Management (TQM) provides a vehicle for designing professional development to meet the needs of individuals and the organizations that employ them. The eight tenets of Deming's theory…

A graduate student who was the only composition person in a two semester teaching seminar experienced the dilemma of defining and establishing that identity in the midst of a classroom struggle between cultural studies and literary theorists on one side and creative writers on the other. The factious teaching seminar mirrored the fact that English…

Based on the premise that women are important to school reform, this book focuses on changes that women educators can bring to schools. Following the introduction, chapter 1 discusses schools and the people in them as mosaic, tapestry, and web. The public character of the school and changing characteristics of school constituents are addressed…

This paper describes the outcomes of two study groups, one for teachers and one for principals that provide an interactive and innovative approach to curriculum change. The study groups were implemented as an alternative form of professional development in the Tucson (Arizona) Unified School District when it changed from a basal reader approach to…

This instructor's guide, which is part of the training materials used in the Child Development Associate (CDA) National Credentialing Program, outlines coursework for a 6-month CDA seminar. The guide begins by describing the background, purpose, and curriculum design of the CDA Professional Preparation Program. An overview of the field experiences…

Research suggests a strong association between the existence of professional learning communities within schools, increases in the effectiveness of practice, and improvement in student achievement. This paper describes the National School Reform Faculty (NSRF), a professional development program at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at…

Action learning is a process of learning and reflection that happens with the support of a group of colleagues ("set") working with real problems with the intention of getting things done. This guide is for those who want to practice action learning. It can be used to introduce the concepts of action learning to others and as a manual…

The 1996-97 school year was the second year of the Children Achieving reform initiative in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania). This summary describes findings from this second-year evaluation. The evaluation team conducted interviews and observations in 21 schools and 14 clusters, interviewing education reform leaders in the school district and…

This paper presents a model of graduate education for advanced teachers and aspiring school administrators that establishes and fosters the foundations for the development of the professional community in schools. Graduate students enrolled in the first distance-education cohort of a new graduate-degree program became cognizant of the need and…

As schools respond to higher expectations for student learning, school staffs are uniting around innovations that show the greatest promise for improving student learning. This paper examines one particular staff-development initiative, the Northwest Initiative for Teaching and Learning (NWIFTL), and the leadership actions that support and sustain…

The Bush Foundation's leadership-development programs are an important source of inservice leadership training in Minnesota. The extent to which these programs influence pre-collegiate education is explored. The paper draws on a longitudinal study that asked two basic questions: what are the long-term effects of the Bush Leadership Programs on…