This article explores what it takes to prepare practitioners to work effectively in the infant-family field and describes efforts to meet training needs. A multifaceted effort to prepare and support practitioners who work with infants, toddlers, and families has been central to the growth of the infant-family field. Part C of IDEA and Early Head…

This paper highlights how a developing country like the Philippines incarnates a learner-centered approach in its overall education framework. Specifically, key policies and strategies relative to curriculum development, pedagogical issues, educational innovation and evaluation, professional development of teachers and school-community dynamics…

Managers and decision-makers are under increasing pressure to engage community members along with experts in considering and resolving environmental degradation. This is especially the case with respect to decisions concerning water quality and quantity in Australia. The commitment of citizens and government to sustainable catchment management and…

High school teachers of sociology have long been neglected by academic sociologists and the ASA. Recent developments are encouraging, however. In 2001, the ASA appointed a Task Force on the Advanced Placement Course for Sociology in High School, and "Teaching Sociology" has published three articles on high school sociology since that…

A case is made that professional development activities in science, when designed as generic programs, can limit pathways individual teachers may take or even select to meet their specific professional development needs. Teacher professional development programs in science have consistently been designed to address system wide needs. These needs…

This review of the literature focuses first on the common reasons for the need for mentoring (professional development, changing roles, principal shortage, under representation of women, and barriers) and continues with a definition and description of mentoring. Finally, the current status of mentoring is summarized followed by a discussion of the…

This investigation focused on principals, by gender, and the impact that the principals' conflict management style had on cultural aspects in schools. Findings were: principals with a conflict management style that is high in dominating show lower school culture scores in professional development, and, conversely, principals with a conflict…

This paper explores the perceptions of school learning mentors with respect to their professional development and emerging professional identity. Although tentative, the emergence of two distinct professional identities is reported in this study: first, an instrumental technical identity characterized by compliance; and second, a creative…

This paper discusses the knowledge, skills and understandings of Foundation Stage teachers in relation to children's speech and language development. Results from a questionnaire to 294 teachers reveal limited initial and post qualification training. Teachers' knowledge of specific aspects of children's language revealed that key areas for…

There has been a strong increase in interest in leadership development in recent years, not least in the learning and skills sector. However, little research exists on the relationship between leadership development and actual leadership behaviours in the sector. This study is an attempt to help fill this gap by looking at leadership, leadership…

The Delphi method was used to generate practices regarding the use of technology in high schools. In addition to generating the practices, teacher leaders, administrators, researchers, and policymakers were asked to rate and come to consensus regarding their importance. Consensus was achieved on 32 of the 34 practices and six themes emerged around…

In the primary grades, literacy teachers often face dual and competing challenges. On one hand, they are expected to provide developmentally appropriate practice in a contextually-sensitive manner. On the other hand, they are often charged with using packaged literacy curricula that contains components that are developmentally inappropriate for…

Professionalism is widely thought to be desirable in ELT, and at the same time institutions are taking seriously the need to evaluate their teachers. This article presents a general approach to professionalism focused on the accountability of the professional to the client based on TESOL's (2000) classification of adult ELT within eight general…

This article describes an interactive professional development unit that engages both novice and experienced evaluators in (a) learning about the Essential Competencies for Program Evaluators (ECPE), (b) applying the competencies to program evaluation contexts, and (c) using the ECPE to reflect on their own professional practices. The article…

In this article, an approach to the final assignment for a seminar class in early childhood education is discussed. The goal of the project was to give practicing teachers a sense that they could make changes in their thinking and therefore their practices, in the present time and in the future, and see themselves more clearly as leaders of their…