The purpose of this qualitative case study was to uncover the ways that women elementary school teachers negotiate their identities within the context of writer's workshop by exploring issues of gender, literacy, and identity. The two central participants were women elementary school teachers who were involved at their Professional Development…

This article describes the evolving stages of the establishment and development of a professional development school partnership. Whereas many such articles center on outcomes only, this one describes the developmental stages necessary to support a strong professional development partnership that allows for distributed learning for all parties…

An elementary school principal provides a Professional Development School (PDS) model that can help close the experience gap for new teachers and better prepare them for the "real world" of the classroom.

Continuing professional development (CPD) of teachers is a neglected area of teacher development in South Africa. The introduction of a new national curriculum in the post-apartheid era presents enormous challenges for teachers. CPD initiatives in South Africa thus far have been fragmented, diluted and have had little direct influence on teachers'…

Many teacher candidates continue to choose the traditional student teaching path in spite of research documenting the value and benefits of professional development school programs. The purpose of this study was to explore reasons why teacher candidates choose a traditional model versus a professional development school model for their culminating…

While "Dancing With the Stars" often shares the background of the dancers and shows some of the preparation that goes into the dances, it does not always give viewers the background of the dances being danced. Many people are never knowledgeable about where dances came from or how they began. In this article, the author provides some…

This article reports findings to promote the best practices of a transformative teaching and learning environment, from a case study of a yearlong full-immersion secondary-level professional development school. The results support the idea that interns have a significant stake, an active professional community commitment, and a heightened…

The Indiana State University Professional Development Schools (ISU PDS) Partnership sprang from the convergence of two strong needs: (1) the need for real life practice in the way of extended clinical experiences for teacher education students in schools of practice; and (2) the need on the part of the schools in the community to have access to…

Few current definitions and assessments of teacher "quality" have considered the social justice-oriented characteristics the authors consider most important in their work with future city teachers. This paper describes the masters licensure program with which the authors are involved, the portfolio assessment system this program utilizes to…

How can we better educate disadvantaged urban students? Drawing on over five years' experience in a broad partnership involving twelve urban professional development schools in five districts, a teachers' union, a comprehensive public university, and several community-based organizations, the contributors to this volume describe how they worked…

The 2009 Professional Development Schools National Conference recognized the professional development school partnership between Pennsylvania State University and State College Area School District for its meritorious partnership work over time and so named it one of the three recipients of the first-ever National Association for Professional…

The purpose of this article is to describe the defining characteristics of an effective professional development school (PDS) model in physical education. The article outlines what a PDS is, discusses the defining characteristics of a current physical education PDS, and provides suggestions for implementation by other universities and P-12 schools…

The purpose of this study was to determine if there were certain teaching competencies, identified by the state of Oregon and pinpointed by building administrators, which cause the greatest difficulty for new teachers. If there were competencies identified by building administrators as problematic, was there more that teacher education…

The professional development school (PDS) is a model of choice for many teacher preparation programs. This approach integrates the functions of teacher preparation, professional development, inquiry and research, and student achievement to bring about whole-school improvement and the simultaneous renewal of the teaching profession. Ideally,…

Two purposes guided this mixed-methods investigation of the collaborative mentoring of teachers in a large school system in the south-eastern United States. The first was to examine collaborative mentoring as unstructured peer-to-peer coaching that emerged spontaneously as teachers shared experiences about effectively teaching English language…