An in-service program using small groups of teachers to support and help each other with problems is described. (JD)

An educative approach to teacher change gives teachers access to new knowledge and understanding in ways that will assist them in taking possession of that knowledge and to work out its implications and its consequences for their own settings and contexts. (CB)

Research about classroom communication, classroom management, training, and staff development form the basis around which teachers can improve their practice. Staff development programs must be dynamic to support and stimulate this process. (CB)

Teachers can improve their practice by listening to, reflecting on, and making sense of practice. Sensemaking strategies include: deductive thinking; inductive thinking; and transductive thinking. (CB)

An Ohio State University project developed an alternative approach to staff development that encompassed areas of general education, aesthetic education, and curriculum theory through experiences in the performing arts. (DF)

Teaching involves intense personal interaction with many students simultaneously and requires the complex intellectual tasks of diagnosis, interpretation, and decision making. Teachers need and deserve psychological and social support to keep their energies focused upon what is essential. (JN)

A staff development program that conceptualizes the teacher as "executive," or manager of time factors, curriculum, and instruction would help teachers to deal with the complexities inherent in the modern elementary school classroom. (CJ)

The point of emphasis in classroom research is shifting away from pure educational theory and toward a descriptive investigation of teaching and learning realities. (LH)

Examines how elementary teachers' understanding of new writing assessments and beliefs about students as writers mediate their acceptance of new narrative-writing assessment methods, noting dilemmas teachers face, staff developers' roles in resolving dilemmas, and ways teachers handle change. Experiences of teachers involved in the Writing What…

Describes efforts to help teachers learn to use new math and reading assessments in their classrooms, highlighting characteristics of professional development that successfully foster change in teachers' ideas and practice. After describing a multi-year staff development/research project on assessment, the paper discusses factors that support and…

Drawing on the experiences of a fictitious teacher, the paper illustrates where professional development has been and where it is going as it supports more learner-centered schools, discussing the nature of the paradigm shift in professional development that will support the building and continuity of learner-centered schools. (SM)

Describes a mentoring project involving a university teacher educator and three elementary teachers. Examines what they learned about the power of focused observation, writing, and practice-centered talk to promote teacher learning. Journal excerpts show the project's progress and reflect concerns participants had as they determined how to work…

This paper describes the process that school-based and university-based educators followed to transform a long-term cooperative relationship into a professional development school community. The school-university partnership involved teachers and staffs from four elementary schools, and faculty and graduate students from the language, literature,…

Examines the reconceptualization of curriculum studies, noting responses to interpretation, praxis, and institutional change. Rejecting the traditional theory-practice split in education raises the challenge of how to design empowering curriculum practice. The article describes preservice teacher education based on a specific interpretation of…

Discusses how administrators can help teachers and administrators become role effective. After considering what teachers need to function as professionals, the article examines the leadership function and its relationship to supervision, clarifying the use of supervision as a process, describing major supervisory functions, and noting the…