Focused, sustained staff development occurs too seldom in U.S. schools. The "just-in-time" approach involves learning teams composed of teachers who teach a specific content area at the same time or at contiguous grade levels. "Bite-sized" training sessions, facilitated by a staff-development professional, occur every few…

Staff development is the key to middle school effectiveness, and this article lists characteristics of an effective staff development program, examples of activities and topics, and questions for program evaluation. (DCS)

As Mississippi's experience shows, there are five necessary stages for staff development: preplanning (forming a committee), planning, implementation, evaluation, and maintenance. This article examines each phase, provides checklists, and highlights the principal's responsibility during each phase. (eight references) (MLH)

Many participant-satisfaction evaluation forms used in staff development programs are ritualistic contrivances that are poorly designed and administered. This article describes five rules for generating evaluation forms based on clarity, a decision focus, brevity, anonymity, and respondents' opportunity to make additional suggestions. Careful…

Having worked for several years with three Wisconsin school districts, the author describes the metaplan that emerged for developing districtwide improvement plans. He presents a completed plan to clarify the process. The participating school districts welcome inquiries. (Author/TE)