In this article we chronicle a particular professional development initiative designed to promote the acquisition of an evaluation habit of mind within an educational context. After describing the rationale behind this initiative in some detail, we proceed to map the experiences of four of the participants--a principal, a vice principal, a…

Principals in America's lowest performing urban schools face many challenges, including public scrutiny as a consequence of being identified as such by state and federal legislation. These special circumstances have implications for the professional development of the leaders of these schools. This article chronicles the work of the Connecticut…

This article reports on both writers' experiences as participants in a collaborative action research project in Hong Kong. The article draws a distinction between teachers as research consumers and teachers as research producers. The authors suggest that active teacher agency in research is a positive element in the professional development of…

An annual-case process that examines principal leadership over the course of a year can provide extensive opportunities for practitioners and professors to collect, examine, and disseminate knowledge in, of, and about practice. Such cases can support professional development and pre-service preparation and become bases for research across multiple…

In this article, the authors examine the prerequisites for leadership preparation programs with regard to implementing and institutionalizing professional learning communities as an instructional strategy. First, the authors posit that as faculty they must examine and reflect on their own teaching practices and how they influence their reciprocal…

This paper describes a capstone seminar offered as an elective in the final year of a single concentration, direct practice Master's program. In this seminar students use a reflective practice model to systematically review their graduate experience in the context of the questions they have about practice. The seminar challenges students to forge…

Using a narrative inquiry methodology, this 10-year study examined the situated nature of two teachers' development. Research questions examined how the teachers situated their own learning, how they developed discourse communities for teaching and learning, and how they used tools in their work. Findings suggest that the following elements of…

Architecture deals with the creation and definition of space expressed in buildings and other physical structures. Pre-service preparation programs and on-going professional development for school leaders similarly are built structures designed to help aspiring and practicing administrators acquire critical knowledge, dispositions, and…

Teaching is so multifaceted that learning to teach requires several years of experience after a person begins to practice. To maintain professional growth, teachers must develop an orientation to their work that includes reflection and renewal. In the absence of these factors, teaching can become too automatic, which can undermine its…

Purpose: This paper aims to understand the situational appropriateness of adopting e-learning for the in-house company qualification, and more specifically to compare the benefits of studying online to more traditional way of studying with print material. Design/methodology/approach: At the end of seven months study, final test results for company…

What are the characteristics of professional development that improve teaching practice? This report addresses this question, using data from the National Evaluation of the Eisenhower Professional Development Program. The Eisenhower program is part of the federal government's efforts to support education reform based on high standards. The success…

The transition from experience-based teachers to expertise-based ones has marked a significant phase in the history of human education. The conceptive transition from the general "occupational ethics" of teachers to "professional ethics" is actually an important aspect of the transition from experience-based to expertise-based…

One goal of professional development is to improve student achievement through improved teacher practice. The middle school philosophy, which supports the rationale that student learning is inextricably interwoven into the fabric of an active learning environment, contains many promising practices that "mirror" what is often considered to be high…

This paper focuses on the experiences of an early career researcher involved in a mentoring relationship at the University of Western Sydney (UWS), Australia. A discussion of the research literature is reported to highlight the attributes of mentoring relationships and the different forms of mentoring. The mentoring relationship that the author is…

The article "Implementation, Sustainability, and Scaling Up of Social-Emotional and Academic Innovations in Public Schools" by Elias, Zins, Graczyk, and Weissberg (2003) is a thought-provoking contribution, and one that begs for more application. Some of the points the authors raise have been articulated in the school and clinical evidence-based…