Many schools across the country face persistent teacher working condition challenges that are closely related to high teacher turnover rates and chronic difficulties in recruiting and retaining teachers. Center for Teaching Quality (CTQ) research examining working conditions survey results in both North Carolina and South Carolina demonstrates…

The purpose of the present evaluation study was to examine the progress made in program implementation, school climate, and student achievement by Tennessee charter schools. Six evaluation questions guided the methodology for this study. Student achievement results are addressed in a separate report. The following evaluation questions are…

The federal No Child Left Behind Act and its mandate for adequate yearly progress has placed unprecedented demands on districts to use evidence to support their school improvement efforts. Research has not yet determined if data-driven decision making leads to improvements in teaching and learning since most outcomes reported to date are based on…

A large percentage of U.S. students attending high-poverty urban middle schools achieve low levels of science proficiency, posing significant challenges to their success in high school science and to national and local efforts to reform science education. Through its work in Philadelphia schools, the Center for Social Organization of Schools at…

This article describes a professional development model in which middle-grades teachers focused on algebraic thinking as part of their participation in a mathematics academy.

Children with special learning needs participate fully in the authors' science classes every day; their job as teachers is to bring about meaningful science connections for all students, including those who do not communicate their knowledge most effectively through the ways most typically associated with classroom learning (i.e., reading,…

This quasi-experimental study examined the effectiveness of Assessing One and All (AOA), a Web-based teacher professional development program. AOA was designed to enhance teachers' assessment literacy and skills in general and inclusive educational assessment practices. Fifty-five teachers from Arizona, South Carolina, and Wisconsin participated…

This publication reviews staff development in higher education as a key to reversing the deterioration of universities in developing nations and to fostering self-reliance and attaining institutional ideals. Part 1 describes the crisis in higher education in developing nations and considers expansion, supply of academic faculty, localization of…

As reformers urge elementary and secondary school teachers to teach mathematics in new ways that highlight problem solving and engage students in important mathematical ideas, researchers have been pointing out that few public school teachers know mathematics in the ways that they would need to know it in order to teach in these new ways. These…

The purposes of the Colorado Science Teaching Enhancement Program (CO-STEP) are to improve the background in science content and the instructional skills of teachers in grades four through six throughout Colorado and to support the implementation of effective instruction. A network of six Teacher Development Centers in Colorado coordinate teacher…

This proceedings contains 27 articles on improving teaching and learning in higher education. The following articles are included: "Gender Differences and Faculty Work Satisfaction," (N. Beardslee, N. White, and J. Richter); "Using Your Own Student Evaluation Form for Teaching Improvement," (Y. Bhada); "Excellence in…

The aim of this paper is to develop a dynamic view of training and professional development of teachers, focusing particularly on the training of less effective and innovative teachers and on the relationship between teachers' self-efficacy and teacher learning. Teachers' self-efficacy is regarded as the extent to which teachers expect they can…

A general analysis of professional development school (PDS) efforts indicates that, overall, the partnership efforts that were studied devote significantly less attention to ideas about the nature of schools, learning, teaching, the knowledge base for teaching, and teacher learning and professional development than they devote to establishing…

This annual journal issue contains 24 papers on issues of faculty development, instructional improvement, knowledge and teaching, and communication in higher education. Many of the papers were developed for the annual conference of the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education (POD). The papers are: (1) "Teaching…

This paper looks at the Teacher Education Equity Project, which was designed to bring gender equity to teacher education. Carried out from 1993 to 1996, the project worked with 61 teachers in 27 states who taught methods courses in mathematics, science, and technology to help them teach their preservice students about gender equity. The project…