Explores how teacher education might be improved, through considering the student teachers' unfolding experiences, highlighting the Post Graduate Certificate of Education in the United Kingdom. Focuses on: (1) the emphasis toward skills and performance in teacher education; (2) concepts of reflection applied within teacher education; and (3) the…

Traces growth of the Teaching Community model at Australia's Monash and Swinburne universities; the model uses group meetings to encourage professional development of teaching staff. Elaborates on the model's successes and why it has been powerful in bringing about change in an area known for resistance, and proposes conditions required for this…

Classroom-based formative assessment by teachers has received a good deal of renewed scholarly and policy interest. The overall aim of this article is to foreground some of the key constitutive issues in this approach to teacher assessment and to suggest possible ways of conceptualizing key epistemological and empirical questions. This discussion…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose a model for holistic professional development as an alternative to practices that have been piecemeal and curriculum focused ignoring, in particular, the critical dimension of management development. Design/methodology/approach: A conceptual framework for considering professional development needs…

There are many factors that affect the design of effective professional development (PD) programs. This review of literature focuses on some of the theoretical models used to explain teacher change, the contextual factors that impact teacher behaviors and curricular change, and the role of continuous professional development in changing teaching…

This guide begins with background information useful to understanding Illinois' framework for implementation and evaluation of Programs of Study. It starts with a visual depiction of the relationships between activity at the federal, state and local levels that evolved to the creation of Illinois' Career Cluster Model. This Model, which is based…

Individual differences in response to a given treatment have been a longstanding interest in education. While many evaluation studies focus on average treatment effects (i.e., the effects of treatments on the levels of outcomes of interest), this paper additionally considers estimating the effects of treatments on the dispersion in outcomes.…

This article reports on the results of a mixed method case study investigating the relationship between professional learning community (PLC) activities and teacher improvement in a first-year middle school. Data were collected from core academic sixth, seventh, and eighth grade teachers using a professional development survey, teacher interviews,…

This document describes model practices of the Star Schools Program, whose purpose is to provide quality, cost-effective instruction and training through distance education technologies. Benefits which have resulted from the Star Schools Projects for local staff, teachers, and parents are identified. The TEAMS Project focuses on a Three-Tier…

This paper examines action research that has been carried out in organizations consisting of predominantly highly educated personnel. The paper revolves around discussion of the Scandinavian model of action research, asking to what degree this model, which has been developed within the framework of industrial democracy, might also serve as a…

This paper offers a definition for the word "effective" and then discusses implications of research on the environment in relation to designing effective instruction. Similarities and differences involved in designing effective instruction are presented across four different contexts: K-12, higher education, human services, and…

One of the best models for development of services for young children may be the national effort to develop services for preschool children with handicaps. In the early 1970s, the federal government began the Handicapped Children's Early Education Program, with the purpose of developing a base from which to launch a comprehensive program of…

This study examines a specific Indian/Metis teacher education program which uses the group as a support system--the Saskatchewan Urban Native Teacher Education Program (SUNTEP) at Regina. SUNTEP is a part of the Elementary Teacher Education Program of the Univesity of Regina. This paper: (1) discusses the support services and systems provided as a…

This paper outlines some of the origins and functions of modeling within a human service training context, particularly counseling psychology, and discusses some of the consequences of modeling as a training method. The materials suggest that an emphasis on affective experience and behavioral methodologies has limited the potential of social…

This collection of four papers focuses on selected issues in early childhood education. The first paper "The Advisory Approach to Inservice Training" presents the highlights of a year's experience with the advisory (on-site consultant) approach to the inservice education of elementary school teachers. A major objective of this pilot study was to…