Showing papers on "Professional development published in 1996"

Teachers’ Professional Community in Restructuring Schools

Abstract: Professional community among teachers, the subject of a number of recent major studies, is regarded as an ingredient that may contribute to the improvement of schools. The research reported in this article is grounded in the assumption that how teachers interact with each other outside of their classrooms may be critical to the effects of restructuring on students. The analysis focuses on the type of professional community that occurs within a school and investigates both the organizational factors that facilitate its development and its consequences for teachers’ sense of responsibility for student learning. The findings suggest that wide variation in professional community exists between schools, much of which is attributable to both structural features and human resources characteristics, as well as school level. Implications for current school reform efforts are discussed.

Managing professional intellect: making the most of the best.

Abstract: In the postindustrial era, the success of a corporation lies more in its intellectual and systems capabilities than in its physical assets. The capacity to manage human intellect—and to convert it into useful products and services—is fast becoming the critical executive skill of the age. As a result, there has been a flurry of interest in intellectual capital, creativity, innovation, and the learning organization, but surprisingly little attention has been given to managing professional intellect.

The Evolution of Peer Coaching

Abstract: Fifteen years have passed since we first proposed peer coaching as an on-site dimension of staff development (Joyce and Showers 1980). In the 1970s, evaluations of staff development that focused on teaching strategies and curriculum revealed that as few as 10 percent of the participants implemented what they had learned. Rates of transfer were low even for those who had volunteered for the training. Well-researched curriculum and teaching models did not find their way into general practice and thus could not influence students' learning environments.

Transforming Higher Education

Abstract: Quality and learning students and staff employers policy and accountability external quality monitoring quality as transformation a view of learning assessment for learning teaching professional development for transformative learning.

Towards a holistic model of professional competence

Abstract: Describes a model of professional competence which attempts to bring together a number of apparently disparate views of competence, including the “outcomes” approach, a key feature of UK National Vocational Qualifications, and the “reflective practitioner” approach, suggested by Schon and now well recognized within professional education programmes.

Teacher Learning and the Mathematics Reforms: What We Think We Know and What We Need to Learn.

Abstract: The work of professional development is as uncertain as practice itself, Ms. Ball points out. Our challenge is to experiment, study, reflect on, and reformulate our hypotheses. All of these are necessary if we are to successfully engage a wider community - to "scale up" reform by sowing ideas. These are times of ambitious efforts to reform curriculum and instruction in mathematics. Reformers have invested time and energy in the creation of new mathematics standards and state curriculum frameworks.(1) A host of innovative curriculum projects are under development, and many states are in the midst of changing their state assessments.(2) Now there is increasing talk of "scaling up" the reform effort, of developing ways to reach more teachers.(3) As one who has been engaged in mathematics reform at several levels - as an elementary teacher, as a district-based resource teacher, as a teacher educator, as a researcher, and as a contributor to the Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics, published by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) - I suggest that we take a closer, more skeptical look at what we think we know about teacher learning and about the teaching envisioned by the reforms and that we consider what "scaling up" might mean. A central tenet of my argument is this: because the mathematics reforms challenge culturally embedded views of mathematics, of who can - or who needs to - learn math, and of what is entailed in teaching and learning it, we will find that realizing the reform visions will require profound and extensive societal and individual learning - and unlearning - not just by teachers, but also by players across the system.(4) What might such ambitious learning entail? In this article I focus on the learning of teachers. I examine four questions: 1) What do we think we currently know about how teachers learn? 2) What do we know about the thing to be learned - this new approach to the teaching of mathematics? 3) What do we know about teachers and what they bring to learning about such teaching? 4) What don't we know about teaching and teacher learning that might matter in trying to "scale up" the mathematics reform effort, and how could we go about learning more? What Do We Think We Know About Teacher Learning? Over the past decade, research and practice have yielded a mass of working ideas about teacher learning.(5) Some of these ideas have been investigated in studies of teacher learning and teacher education. Some have emerged from the practice of experienced teacher educators. Others are part of the current ideology. I use words like "ideas" and "beliefs" deliberately here. To call these tenets "knowledge" seems problematic, for they are unevenly inspected and warranted. For example, the proof of some of these ideas about teacher learning is circular. That is, professional development projects are designed with these ideas in mind; then, when the project is judged "successful" by some standard, this result is taken as validation of the ideas. Other ideas about teacher learning are not supported with evidence at all but are advanced as moral positions. They are seen as an inherent good. This does not automatically reduce their potential value, but it should shape our understanding of what they represent. I am not saying that any of the ideas we currently have are wrong. But I am urging that we be more skeptical of what we think we know. Some of the ideas in the following list are so vague as to need considerably more development, while others may be true only in certain ways or in some situations. Despite their varied genesis, a small number of ideas about teacher learning show up repeatedly - in discussions, in professional development projects, and in the literature. They concern teachers, what teachers need to know, and the conditions and arrangements that support teacher learning. * Prior beliefs and experience. What teachers bring to the process of learning to teach affects what they learn. …

What Matters Most: A Competent Teacher for Every Child.

Abstract: The report of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future offers a blueprint for recruiting, preparing, supporting, and rewarding excellent educators in all of America's schools, according to Ms. Darling. Hammond. For the details, read on. We propose an audacious goal . . . by the year 2006, America will provide all students with what should be their educational birthright: access to competent, caring, and qualified teachers.(1) With these words, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future summarized its challenge to the American public. After two years of intense study and discussion, the commission - a 26-member bipartisan blue-ribbon panel supported by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York - concluded that the reform of elementary and secondary education depends first and foremost on restructuring its foundation, the teaching profession. The restructuring, the commission made clear, must go in two directions: toward increasing teachers' knowledge to meet the demands they face and toward redesigning schools to support high-quality teaching and learning. The commission found a profession that has suffered from decades of neglect. By the standards of other professions and other countries, U.S. teacher education has historically been thin, uneven, and poorly financed. Teacher recruitment is distressingly ad hoc, and teacher salaries lag significantly behind those of other professions. This produces chronic shortages of qualified teachers in fields like mathematics and science and the continual hiring of large numbers of "teachers" who are unprepared for their jobs. Furthermore, in contrast to other countries that invest most of their education dollars in well-prepared and well-supported teachers, half of the education dollars in the United States are spent on personnel and activities outside the classroom. A lack of standards for students and teachers, coupled with schools that are organized for 19th-century learning, leaves educators without an adequate foundation for constructing good teaching. Under these conditions, excellence is hard to achieve. The commission is clear about what needs to change. No more hiring unqualified teachers on the sly. No more nods and winks at teacher education programs that fail to prepare teachers properly. No more tolerance for incompetence in the classroom. Children are compelled to attend school. Every state guarantees them equal protection under the law, and most promise them a sound education. In the face of these obligations, students have a right to competent, caring teachers who work in schools organized for success. The commission is also clear about what needs to be done. Like the Flexner report that led to the transformation of the medical profession in 1910, this report, What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future, examines successful practices within and outside the United States to describe what works. The commission concludes that children can reap the benefits of current knowledge about teaching and learning only if schools and schools of education are dramatically redesigned. The report offers a blueprint for recruiting, preparing, supporting, and rewarding excellent educators in all of America's schools. The plan is aimed at ensuring that all schools have teachers with the knowledge and skills they need to enable all children to learn. If a caring, qualified teacher for every child is the most important ingredient in education reform, then it should no longer be the factor most frequently overlooked. At the same time, such teachers must have available to them schools and school systems that are well designed to achieve their key academic mission: they must be focused on clear, high standards for students; organized to provide a coherent, high-quality curriculum across the grades; and designed to support teachers' collective work and learning. We note that this challenge is accompanied by an equally great opportunity: over the next decade we will recruit and hire more than two million teachers for America's schools. …

Teacher Vulnerability: understanding its moral and political roots

Abstract: Many teachers experience a seme of vulnerability in their work. Analysing primary school teachers’ professional biographies, the author reconstructed the main sources of this vulnerability: administrative or policy measures; professional relationships in the school; limits to teachers’ efficacy. Further analysis of the meaning this vulnerability has for teachers revealed its moral and political roots. Vulnerability implies the feeling that one's professional identity and moral integrity are questioned. Coping with it therefore implies political action in order to (re)gain the social recognition of one's professional self and restore the necessary workplace conditions for good job performance. Finally, autobiographical reflection and story telling are suggested as effective strategies to deal successfully with the sense of vulnerability

Networks and Reform in American Education.

Abstract: Educational reform networks are becoming increasingly important as alternative forms of teacher and school development in this time of unprecedented reform of schools. These networks appear to be a way of engaging school-based educators in better directing their own learning; allowing them to sidestep the limitations of institutional roles, hierarchies, and geographic locations; and encouraging them to work with many different kinds of people. In a study of sixteen educational reform networks, we found that they shared organizational themes relating to: (1) purposes and direction; (2) building collaboration, consensus, and commitment; (3) activities and relationships as important building blocks; (4) leadership as cross-cultural brokering and facilitating; and (5) dealing with the funding problem. Regardless of their differences, the sixteen networks we studied appear to have in common agendas more often challenging than prescriptive; learning that is more indirect than direct; formats more collaborative than individualistic; work that is intentionally more integrated than fragmented; leadership more facilitative than directive; thinking that encourages more multiple perspectives; values that are both context-specific and generalized; and structures more movement-like than organization- like.

Continuing Professional Development: A Practical Guide for Teachers and Schools

Abstract: The second edition of this popular text, meets the continue and increasing demand of teachers to apply professional development techniques from other areas of work to their own profession.

Reform of and as Professional Development

Abstract: Reform-minded professional development imposes the heavy burdens of coping with the uncertainties of change. The good news, according to Mr. Sykes, is that educators are beginning to turn their creativity toward teacher learning and to develop promising new practices. Two judgments frame the contemporary concern for the professional development of teachers. The first reckons that teacher learning must be the heart of any effort to improve education in our society. While other reforms may be needed, better learning for more children ultimately relies on teachers. What lends urgency to professional development is its connection to reform and to the ambitious new goals for education that are to be extended to all students. Can professional development lead education reform? The second judgment regards conventional professional development as sorely inadequate. The phrase "one-shot workshop" has entered educational parlance as shorthand for superficial, faddish inservice education that supports a mini-industry of consultants without having much effect on what goes on in schools and classrooms. The resources devoted to professional development, this judgment charges, are too meager and their deployment too ineffective to matter. These twin observations form the most serious unsolved problem for policy and practice in American education today. Reformers have launched efforts to set goals and standards of various kinds, to create school reform networks, to decentralize governance and management, to restructure schools, to charter new schools, and so on. But efforts to promote teacher learning that will lead to improved practice on a wide scale have yet to emerge. The process of reform itself needs reforming to achieve better ongoing teacher learning.(1) In addition to teachers, such "reform of reform" must involve many actors in the system. Teachers are frequently the targets of reform, but they exert relatively little control over professional development. The system of professional development is deeply institutionalized in patterns of organization, management, and resource allocation within schools and school districts, as well as between districts and a range of providers that includes freelance consultants, intermediate and state agencies, professional associations, and universities. Moreover, the system is increasingly structured by means of federal, state, and district policies. This system is powerful, resistant to change, and well adapted to the ecology of schooling. The system supplies jobs for many educators and operates as a series of exchanges through which incentives and rewards are distributed. Hence, many interests are at stake in any proposals for the reform of professional development. At the same time, in the interstices and around the margins of the system, alternative practices flourish that may hold promise for reform-oriented teacher learning. This Kappan special section explores such practices, concentrating on underlying assumptions, descriptions, and emerging problems. The articles strike a balance between advocacy for new approaches and honesty about the difficulties. The authors seem mindful of history's lesson not to oversell reform lest the results disappoint. Yet they do propose new visions of professional development that recast teacher learning in ways that parallel the teaching reforms themselves. The tenor of the writing is at once refreshing and sobering. I am reminded of the tensions within my own teaching. As I write this introduction, I am also reading student journals for a course I teach. My students are in the fifth year of a five-year teacher education program. They serve as teaching interns in local schools while they take several graduate courses. The course I teach concentrates on professional roles and responsibilities and introduces these novice teachers to aspects of their work other than direct instruction. Their journals are poignant. …

Every Child, Every School: Success for All

Abstract: Success for All The Promise and the Plan Reading and Writing/Language Arts Programs Tutoring Programs Prekindergarten and Kindergarten Programs Roots and Wings Adding Social Studies, Science, and Mathematics to Success for All Family Support and Integrated Services Facilitators, Professional Development, School Restructuring, and Networking Research on Success for All Success for All, Roots and Wings, and School Reform

Professional Development as Transformative Learning. New Perspectives for Teachers of Adults. The Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series.

Abstract: 1. Preparation and Development of Adult Educators 2. Traditional Developmental Strategies 3. Strategies for Self-Directed Development 4. Critical Reflection 5. Becoming a Transformative Learner 6. Individual Differences in Educator Development 7. Transformative Development in Work and Social Contexts 8. Creating a New Vision for Professional Growth 9. Strategies for the Developer.

School Effectiveness And School-Based Management: A Mechanism For Development

Abstract: Part 1 School effectiveness: school functions and school effectiveness models of school effectiveness a dynamic perspective of school effectiveness. Part 2 School-based management: the theory of school-based management self-management at multiple levels a school-based management mechanism for development. Part 3 Practice: leadership for the school- based management mechanism management of school-based staff development management of school-based curriculum change management of school-based change conclusion - the future of research on school effectiveness and school-based management.

Characteristics of the informal curriculum and trainees' ethical choices.

Abstract: In October 1995, the Association of American Medical Colleges held its first Conference on Students' and Residents' Ethical and Professional Development. In a plenary session and break-out sessions, the 150 participants, representing a wide variety of medical and professional specialties and roles, discussed the factors and programs that affect medical trainees' development of ethical and professional standards of behavior. The main challenge of addressing students' professional development is the enormous range of influences on that development, many of which, such as the declines in civic responsibility and good manners throughout the United States, fall outside the scope of academic medicine. Nonetheless, many influences fall within reach of medical educators. In a pre-conference survey, participants ranked eight issues related to graduating ethical physicians. The respondents ranked highest the inadequacy of the understanding of how best to influence students' ethical development, followed by faculty use of dehumanizing coping mechanisms, and the "business" of medicine's taking precedence over academic goals. The plenary speakers discussed the "informal curriculum" and the "hidden curriculum" and the need for medical faculty to take seriously the great influence they have on students' and residents' moral and professional development as they become physicians. Whether consciously or not, medical education programs are producing physicians who do not meet the ethical standards the profession has traditionally expected its members to meet. In three series of break-out sessions, the participants analyzed the nature of the ethical dilemmas that medical students and residents face from virtually the first day of their training, the use of role playing in promoting ethical development, and ways to improve policies and overcome barriers to change.

Professional Development as Transformative Learning: New Perspectives for Teachers of Adults

Abstract: 1. Preparation and Development of Adult Educators 2. Traditional Developmental Strategies 3. Strategies for Self-Directed Development 4. Critical Reflection 5. Becoming a Transformative Learner 6. Individual Differences in Educator Development 7. Transformative Development in Work and Social Contexts 8. Creating a New Vision for Professional Growth 9. Strategies for the Developer.

Principles of Effective Professional Development for Mathematics and Science Education: A Synthesis of Standards

Abstract: erable attention to the role that effective professional development can play in improving the teaching of mathematics and science. Significant contributions on this question are represented in national and state efforts to develop standards to guide reform. Some national efforts, such as those by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Research Council, come from those who are interested in improving particular subject matter, as well as teaching and assessment. Other groups, such as the National Staff Development Council, focus on professional development itself.

The purpose, value and structure of the practicum in higher education: a literature review

Abstract: The practicum constitutes an integral part of many professional courses in higher education; and is manifest in several different forms depending on the discipline: field experience, cooperative education, sandwich programs, internships, clerkships, clinical practicum, and the like. This paper provides an overview of different ways in which the practicum has been conceptualised, implemented and evaluated in higher education. It focuses attention on the purpose and value of the practicum; the relationship between the practicum and the learning outcomes of a course as a whole; and the structure and placement of the practicum within a course. Findings indicate that whilst the practicum is widely accepted as a valuable and successful component of professional education, it has a number of shortcomings; and the lack of good quality research into the practicum makes it difficult to draw unequivocal conclusions. A number of questions are posed to guide further research into the role of supervision during practicum placements; the kinds of learning goals and outcomes that are best achieved through the practicum; and the impact on student learning of the length and structure of the practicum.

Fostering the Use of Educational Technology: Elements of a National Strategy

Abstract: The nation's most important educational goal must be to produce learners adequately prepared for life and work in the 21st century. Computer- and network-based technology will play a key role in reaching that goal. In 1983, there was about one computer for every 125 students in the nation's public schools. By 1995, there was one computer for every nine students. In 1994, U.S. schools spent about $3 billion on computer- and network-based technology. Despite all this activity, however, examples of schoolwide use of technology are comparatively rare and isolated. This report identifies principles for guiding public officials, educators, and others concerned with increasing the use of technology to improve the performance of schools and school systems. Prepared as a result of RAND's Critical Technologies Institute (CTI) participation in federal efforts to plan a research agenda and develop a national educational technology plan, it is based upon a series of workshops, interviews, and literature reviews. This report takes stock of the current status of the use of technology by U.S. public elementary and secondary schools and suggests some of the challenges that face educators, policymakers, and producers of educational technology and software as they seek to expand and deepen the use of technology in schools.

Rethinking Careers Education and Guidance: Theory, Policy and Practice.

Abstract: Part A: Theory and context 1 The Social Context of Guidance 2 Career Theory 3 A Career-Learning Theory 4 The Learning and Economic Outcomes of Guidance Part B: Provision 5 Careers Work in Schools 6 Careers Work in Further and Adult Education 7 Careers Work in Higher Education 8 Career Planning within Work Organisations 9 The Careers Service 10 Other Sources of Guidance on Learning and Work Part C: Practice 11 The Career Counselling Interview 12 Careers Education in a Curriculum 13 Experience-Based Learning about Work 14 Recording Achievement and Action Planning 15 Computers in Guidance Part D: Development 16 Staff Development 17 Developing Careers Programmes in Organisations 18 Evaluation Part E: Policy 19 Socio-Political Idelolgies in Guidance 20 International Perspectives 21 Careers Guidance and Public Policy Author Index Subject Index

Cheating in medical school: a survey of second-year students at 31 schools

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Although there have been a number of studies of cheating in universities, surprisingly little has appeared recently in the literature regarding academic dishonesty among medical students. METHOD: To assess the prevalence of cheating in medical schools across the country, class officers a

A Review of Work Based Learning in Higher Education

Abstract: The idea of work based learning in higher education might sound like a contradiction in terms. Work based learning is surely in the the workplace. The senses in which it might also, under certain conditions, be in higher education are explored in this review. There are increasing arrangements whereby people can obtain academic recognition for learning which has taken place outside of educational institutions. In addition to traditional forms of professional education and sandwich courses, one can add a host of relationships between employers and higher education institutions which involve quite fundamental questioning of the roles and responsibilities of each in the continuing education and training of adults. Such developments can be related to broader themes concerning the organisation of knowledge in society, the changing nature of work and career, the learning society and the implications they hold for individual workers, their employers and educational providers. The Department for Education and Employment sponsored the study to produce a substantial literature review of progress and issues raised in the field of work based learning in higher education. The first part of the book provides a contextual and conceptual backdrop against which more practical aspects of work based learning are then considered in part two. The final part considers strategic issues of implementation for higher education institutions, employers and individuals, before turning to more wide ranging issues of policy.

Problem‐based learning in business education: Curriculum design and implementation issues

Abstract: Drawing on eleven years' experience with a problem-based learning MBA program, we have found that the way in which the PBL process is used, faculty capabilities, and student transition are critical implementation issues.

Developing reflective practice in higher degree students through a learning journal

Abstract: The development of reflective practice through the keeping of a learning journal by full-time and part-time students on taught modular higher degree courses in education is investigated. Two models for reflecting on personal, academic, professional and evaluative development are outlined, guidelines for the content of learning journals are indicated and their contributions to notions of student ‘empowerment˚s, recorded through a learning journal, are evaluated in practice.

Testing Models of Counselor Development With a Measure of Counseling Self‐Efficacy

Abstract: Models of counselor development have become very popular, but empirical research has found differences primarily between beginning graduate students and doctoral interns. In the research described here, a counseling self-efficacy instrument was developed and was used to test hypotheses based on self-efficacy theory and models of counselor development, both of which would make similar predictions about increases in counseling self-efficacy resulting from clinical training and experience. The findings include strong reliability and validity evidence for the instrument and several significantly different groups of participants that correspond roughly to the groups hypothesized in stage models of counselor development.

Collaboration as Dialogue: Teachers and Researchers Engaged in Conversation and Professional Development

Abstract: This article, in both form and substance, seeks to reconceptualize the role of collaboration in professional development. The nature of collaboration and collaborative relationships in professional development research is reviewed, and an alternative conceptualization is offered. Because our work spans multiple sites, we are able to highlight the particularities of our experiences across sites and to contrast the individual stories of each teacher and researcher as opposed to essentializing our story into generalities about these groups. Writing about this work together required the construction of a narrative form that could incorporate and honor the voices of everyone. The story/data is presented as a Readers Theatre—a written script, based on meeting dialogues and interactions. This format highlights the problem of writing in collaborative research, as well as the differences in collaborative experiences among teachers and researchers. It also seeks to challenge traditional conceptions of the roles of ...