This paper describes the American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI), which can serve as a model for connecting school, community, and university resources to strengthen indigenous languages. Since 1978, AILDI has held annual summer institutes that team community-based native speakers of indigenous languages with academic linguists and…

The program at Colorado College promotes the interdisciplinary, interracial, and intercultural study of the American Southwest. Descriptions of a freshman seminar, off-campus semesters, an advanced seminar in the Newberry Library, an institute and teaching degree program, and faculty recruitment and development are given. (Author/MLW)

Examines how the Virginia Historical Society's Teachers' Institute helps teachers to encourage their students to think like historians. Teachers attending the Institute develop a teaching unit based on primary source documents held by the Historical Society. Later evaluations revealed a positive impact on the teachers' effectiveness. (MJP)

This paper describes an intensive, four-week summer institute for foreign language teachers that focused on the Thai language. The institute emphasized a six-point mantra of teaching methods: (1) task-based instruction; (2) learner-centered instruction; (3) contextualization; (4) authenticity; (5) spiraling; and (6) balance between skill-getting…

Contends that the National Geographic Society's Teaching Geography Project is an inservice teacher education success story. Describes the origins, objectives, and development of the project. Summarizes the impact of the project and contends that its success is the result of the workshop format and guided practice in instructional strategies. (CFR)

This study followed up teachers two years after they had attended a summer institute on gifted education to identify changes teachers made in their classrooms. It identified factors that either supported (student success, personal challenge, and increasing self confidence) or impeded (feelings of isolation, school bureaucracy, large class size,…

This article demonstrates the evaluation of a German Computer and Law (C&L) seminar, which has been conducted in an experimental, distributed manner with five institutes co-operating. The evaluation was dedicated to the question, in which way the course supported cooperative learning among the students of the different participating…

One of the greatest challenges we face as an early childhood professional community is providing short-term, affordable professional development that results in depth of understanding and change of practice. The University of Wyoming Early Childhood Summer Institute is a model for professional development that fosters reflection, inquiry, and…

This research describes how the Pemnatapan Kerja Guru (PKG) Project in Indonesia developed into one of the largest continuing inservice programs in the world. Working with UNESCO and UNICEF, the Ministry of Education began a radical innovation of inservice training of secondary teachers already in the classrooms. Beginning with science teachers in…

The Rural School Consortium for Educational Leadership and Reform was formed by four rural Indiana school districts in 1991 to coordinate resources for providing staff development that would support reform and restructuring efforts. In the first consortium-sponsored activity, teachers, administrators, support staff, board members, and parents…

All individuals desiring employment as substitute teachers for the Oklahoma City Public Schools are required to attend a professional substitute teacher institute. Certified and noncertified applicants are eligible; retired teachers who have been employed within the previous 3 years are exempt. Curriculum and instruction for the institute,…

Brazilian environmental education and training experience is recent but has a concrete base of generating awareness among all levels of the population and also aims to train people to protect, control and manage the use of environmental resources. Several visits were made by the author to organizations, enterprises and institutions from federal,…

The Georgia Instructor Academy (GIA) initiative is intended to provide staff development activities that enhance the quality of instruction delivered at the technical institutes. Before GIA could become functional, the following significant changes in the state's postsecondary technical education system had to occur: (1) creation of the Georgia…

The two guides combined here profile the services available through the Michigan Lifelong Learning Link, a program developed to provide continuous adult professional development activities designed to enhance educator effectiveness. The "Perspectives" guide describes the activities funded by small incentive, consultant, and…

The Professional Development Institute (PDI) is a 4-day orientation workshop for instructors entering service in the postsecondary vocational-technical school system in Arkansas. The PDI focuses on activities designed to accomplish the four goals set by the Arkansas Division of Vocational and Technical Education: to assist the instructor in making…