The relationship between staff development and the integration of microcomputing into instructional practice is examined. Data were obtained from a survey of all public school districts in a midwestern state (N=427). The questionnaire elicited information about the districts' integration of microcomputers into instruction and the extent/scope of…

This paper discusses the effectiveness of the Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program in equipping graduate students for the realities of the academic job market. It reviews the experiences of Duke University (North Carolina) with the PFF program and the effect that PFF has had on preparing graduate students to enter the job market as new faculty.…

This report describes the initial efforts at Whitworth College (Washington) to provide all faculty with updated skills on how to help student writers. The first chapter describes the background of the grant that was obtained to fund the 2-year faculty development program. The second chapter discusses the theory and practice of writing across the…

Staff development has been the focus of the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory's Rural Small Schools Initiative (RSSI) since it began in 1987. The research literature and RSSI's own survey of staff development practices in southwestern rural schools indicate that current staff development delivery systems are content rich and process…

Creating an effective and efficient program for continuing education and staff development among elementary and secondary teachers has become an important issue. Unfortunately, problems inherent to the current system have sabotaged the best of these individual efforts, leaving little in the way of productivity to show for the efforts that have…

In an effort to improve the quality of its educational systems, Florida mandated participation in a year-long Beginning Teacher Program (BTP) as a requisite for regular certification of beginning teachers. The support system of the program consists of regular formative and summative assessments of the teacher's performance, and the provision of…

The professional development program at Golden West College has successfully maximized instructional change and innvovation for several years. The success of the program is due to factors such as support from the president; the appointment of a dean of educational development whose sole responsibility is to work with faculty on new developmental…

The Writing Across the Business Disciplines Project at Robert Morris College has had a profound effect on faculty from various disciplines who have taken part in the program since its inception in 1985. Each participant targets a specific course in his or her own field for intensive scrutiny and eventual re-design. During this process, faculty…

The impact and effectiveness of various faculty development programs is the focus of this report from the Association of American Colleges. Twenty faculty development programs around the country are examined. Faculty development is defined in this study as all activities designed to improve the performance of faculty as teachers, scholars,…

Describes a collaborative effort between the Meigs (Ohio) local school district and the college of education at Ohio University that had significant positive effects on students' reading achievement and teacher effectiveness in reading instruction. (RL)

In the spring and summer of 1995, the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the first cohort of eight projects in a new initiative, the Local Systemic Change through Teacher Enhancement (LSC) program. Eighteen additional projects were funded in 1996, 20 in 1997, 12 in 1998, 13 in 1999, 9 in 2000, 7 in 2001, and 1 in 2002 for a total of 88…

The Pacific Communities with High-performance in Literacy Development (Pacific CHILD) Professional Development Model research project was initiated in response to an overwhelming need in PREL's Pacific service region for improvement of teachers' knowledge and instructional practices in early reading. This report examines the question of the…

The main goal of the study was to document and describe the beginnings of the implementation of the Strategic Instructional Model at five (5) middle schools in the EPISD. The study also examined Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) data from those students that participated in the program. Methodology: Implementation information was…

This final report describes activities and accomplishments of a 3-year project of faculty and curricular development using a variety of classic texts and involving 10 liberal arts colleges and one state university. Three-week summer seminars were held for faculty who studied self-selected classics introduced by master teachers, and discussed…

This report describes the reactions of beginning teachers, mentors, principals, and district coordinators in 12 New Brunswick, Canada, school districts to a teacher induction program that paired beginning teachers with experienced mentor teachers over one school year. Questionnaires were sent to each of the four groups. All four groups strongly…