Because pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) includes teachers' understanding of how students learn, or fail to learn, specific subject matter, the development of PCK is an important goal to focus on in professional development programs. The research literature clearly indicates the complex nature of PCK as a form of teachers' professional…

This brief by the Literacy Coaching Clearinghouse is about reaching for the stars--stories of vision and commitment from educators in small and large schools. Everyone knows of people who are held up as "visionaries" throughout history: Leonardo Da Vinci, Mahatma Gandhi, Jules Verne, Thomas Edison, Susan Anthony, or John Dewey, to name a few. The…

Staff of the National Weather Service Offices should be able to understand interpersonal communication and public relations in order to better serve their mission to "protect lives and property" as well as work with their internal and external partners (NWS Internet Services Team). Two technologies have been developed to assist the integration of…

Ending educational inequality requires not only an army of teachers who do whatever it takes to overcome the challenges facing children in low-income communities but also an army of leaders, working both in and outside school, who will change our inequitable system. Teach for America's mission is to help build this force. The organization's…

A former Teach for America recruit who completed her training in a university-based program compares the two approaches to teacher preparation. In Teach for America, she learned how to design units and prepare lesson plans; in her university-based program, she had the time to learn from master teachers and build valuable skills, then practice…

A recent UK survey found many graduates unprepared for employment while employers placed greater value on transferable, employability skills rather than on specific ones. Increased student entry into professional-oriented programs, and subsequent pressures on work placements, have educators looking to alternative ways of providing safe,…

This paper examines the underlying assumptions that competency-based frameworks are based upon in relation to leadership development. It examines the impetus for this framework becoming the prevailing theoretical base for developing leaders and tracks the historical path to this phenomenon. Research suggests that a competency-based framework may…

Author sees trainers as change agents and suggests three areas for change within the organization. (SP)

Gives specific recommendations for the effective use of behavioral objectives in planning, designing, delivering, and evaluating training. (SK)

The authors of this paper suggest that the increasing use of behavioral objectives in adult education is a symptom of a threatening economic and political climate; that behavioral objectives are incompatible with any new paradigm, any "new way of seeing," as represented by theories of andragogy and the concept of recurrent education.…

A training consultant writes about the common practice of training for appearances and the length of time spent on it, rather than for the actual outcomes. He stresses the importance of well-designed instructional objectives as a means of judging training effectiveness and offers a questionnaire for trainers to try out to check their knowledge of…

The author stresses the importance of planning in setting up company training programs and the need for performance and instructional objectives. (MF)