Challenges inherent to increasing student literacy are well-documented particularly in under performing schools. Those challenges increase in schools experiencing high staff turnover, high populations of English language learners, and greater poverty. In order to improve student learning in these communities there needs to be a comprehensive…

Introducing new practices alone seldom results in new practices being incorporated into ongoing classroom practices. The Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) provides a way to transfer new practices into the classroom. This article presents the Implementation Bridge, a metaphor for moving from the earlier or less advanced stages to the later or…

An inherent characteristic of technology education is the continual development of new technologies and creating innovative applications of already existing technologies. As exciting as these innovations can be, technology educators and school staffs are frequently challenged to accomplish high levels of implementation. The metaphor of the…

An analysis and review of the activities in the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory Regional Exchange (SEDL/RX) is presented, and the following questions spoken to: 1) How has the SEDL/RX evolved and developed? 2) What are the major activities at the SEDL/RX? 3) How do the Advisory Board members perceive the SEDL/RX and what do they see…

There is widespread understanding of the need to evaluate teacher education programs. Unfortunately, the history of teacher education program evaluations is spotty, evolutionary, and limited in scope. Probably the most fundamental reason that program evaluations are limited is that there has not been a clear, consistent, and shared framework for…

Current issues confronting teacher education are reviewed in this article. An array of significant opportunities matched with suggestions about the directions that teacher education could take are proposed and described. (DF)

The individuals who use, or neglect to use, an innovation such as mainstreaming are the key to success or failure in change efforts. The concepts of individual stages of concern about an innovation and levels of use of the innovations are discussed. It is suggested that these dimensions can be used as diagnostic tools for facilitating change and…

Excerpts from observers of the conference "Policies, Practices, and Research in Teacher Education: Beyond the Looking Glass" illustrate the variety of recommendations to improve teacher education and the quality of teaching that emerged during this conference. Conference observers were Hendrik Gideonse, Shirley Hord, Thomas J. Lasley, Preston…

A synthesis is presented of the outcomes of the "Beyond the Looking Glass" Conference which brought together educational practitioners, policy makers, and researchers to make concrete suggestions for what should be done to improve the conditions, processes, and effects of teacher education. Three major points of agreement formed the…

From a general overview presented of the current state of teacher education, proposals for improvement and development are suggested: (1) Teacher education should be the basis for the pulling together of the various mini-disciplines that now exist; (2) Teacher education associations should be merged into one influential organization; (3) Support…

This paper describes Innovation Configuration (IC) Mapping as an approach for assessing the extent of implementation of a program. An IC Map is similar metaphorically to a road map in that it summarizes different ways of getting from one point to another. Each map consists of basic units, or components, that can be made operational in a number of…

This paper reports how one school district has successfully implemented a major innovation, the Performance Pay Plan (PPP) for Teachers, and how they have collaborated with change process researchers to assess implementation. The paper emphasizes: the community-wide process of involvement and trust building used by the district to launch and…

When implementing an innovation, a multitude of components interact to change not only the users, but the innovation as well. This guide explains the concept of innovation configurations, or adaptations made in innovations during implementation. After presenting and discussing past research on innovation changes, the report outlines a five step…

Over the past few years, several complicated innovations, such as mainstreaming and minimal competency testing, have confronted teachers in addition to their usual responsibilities. In order to facilitate the teachers' implementation of such changes, the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) was developed, using the teacher and the innovation as…

Within the Concern-Based Adoption Model (CBAM), three key variables serve as tools for focusing on the individual teacher's progressive involvement in an innovative inservice education program. These three dimensions are: the teacher's attitude toward the innovation, changing level of use of the innovation, and perception of the innovation itself.…