The Center for Educational Policy and Management at the University of Oregon has developed a professional development term for improving teaching skills of secondary school teachers. The content of the program has been drawn from two major categories of instructional research: (1) classroom management and organizational strategies that promote and sustain student academic engaged time, and (2) research-based instructional design components that improve students' mastery of skills. The program includes four major sets of activities: a summer seminar, three followup sessions, peer observations and coaching, and an administrators' seminar. The summer seminar is 1 week long and introduces teachers to classroom management and organizational strategies, and to the principles of mastery learning. Three 1-day followup sessions are scheduled, 1 month apart, during the following quarter. The sessions provide ongoing assistance to the teachers as they apply the new strategies in the classroom. The peer observation and coaching components are introduced during these followup sessions. A brief seminar is provided for the school administrators with an overview of the instructional principles presented to the teachers and suggestions for ways they can support teachers in the implementation of the instructional strategies they are learning. An intensive staff development effort, this program has a narrow focus and is solely concerned with improving students' achievement through research-based instructional strategies. An extensive reference list is included. (MD)