Math education in the United States remains resistant to systemic change, and our country pays the price. Stemhagen's article "Democracy and School Math" further confirms this trend. Despite repeated calls for reform, decades of research on how people learn, millions of dollars invested in teacher professional development, and years of…

One increasingly popular way of supporting new teachers is through the use of mentoring. New teachers are often paired with mentors as one of a number of supports meant to aid new teachers as they begin their career. The various types of mentoring range from school based mentors assigned by the school to specialty mentors, such as math coaches.…

This paper provides an account of how performance management is operating in a rural primary school in the county of Rutland, UK, which aspires to provide an outstanding standard of education for its pupils. The paper begins by outlining the existing regulations for the operation of performance management in schools, before going on to explain how…

The purpose of this study was to investigate teacher and principal perceptions of the role of the principal in fostering teachers' professional growth. A Likert-type questionnaire was used to explore the ways 476 teachers and 135 principals see themselves as being supported in their professional growth. New and veteran teachers and principals…

Traditional systems of teacher evaluation are often ineffective because they rely on outmoded evaluative criteria, usually in the form of checklists; simplistic assessments, such as "needs improvement"; procedures that fail to differentiate between new and veteran teachers' experience and expertise; lack of consistency among evaluators;…

Sometimes partners find one another when they're not looking. In South Carolina, education leaders at Georgetown County School District were seeking only information when they attended a workshop sponsored by the South Carolina Department of Education. The two-day learning experience, provided by SEDL, a nonprofit organization based in Austin,…

Attracting, developing, and retaining employees, ensuring a pipeline of qualified people, and building a culture of engagement and productivity are important to the success of any organization. It is called "talent management." With the right technology support, talent management's real value is that it allows organizations to identify high…

In this article, the authors consider how participants in a year-long, transformative professional development program for public school leaders took up and/or ignored insights when they left the sanctity of the retreats and returned to work. The program, called the Courage to Lead, aims to help school leaders to reconnect their "soul" (an…

As part of a government-initiated programme based on the concept of professional development schools, three secondary schools in Amsterdam decided to facilitate teachers in their schools to engage in practice research. This was based on the assumption that research conducted by teachers contributes both to the learning of the teacher researcher…

Learning progressions are the successively more sophisticated ways of thinking about an idea that follow one another over a broad span of time. This review examines the research on science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in order to refine ideas about science teacher learning progressions and how to support them. Research published…

This study presents findings from an evaluation of the Developmental Designs classroom management approach and professional development model during its first year of implementation across 22 middle schools in a large, Midwestern school district. The impact of this professional development model on teaching and learning as related to participants'…

Purposively selected urban California superintendents and assistant superintendents participated in surveys and interviews which examined their views about the impact California university Tier I school leadership preparation programs have on overall preparedness for the position, effectiveness of job performance, longevity, transference of skills…

We describe historical foundations of professional development (PD) in early childhood intervention (ECI) and where we stand on the silver anniversary of PL 99-457. To advance its scientific basis, we assert that it is important to define what is meant by PD; identify structural and process features of PD hypothesized to be effective for…

Teacher professional development activities in the USA take many forms from half-day workshops that focus on particular topics or classroom techniques to long term course work that offers university level credit. With few exceptions, the primary goal of such activities is to enhance the teachers' classroom effectiveness and improve student…

Evaluation of large-scale professional development programmes in a cost-effective but detailed manner presents challenges. Much of the research evidence on the effectiveness of professional development in science education has been the result of small-scale studies that use clustered or stratified sampling methods. Using the evidence collected…