Series on School Reform – serie

In their newest volume, Lieberman and Miller enlist a stellar group of contributors to offer - once again - the best of what is known and practiced about professional development in schools. What is the purpose of staff development? What ends does it seek? To answer these often overlooked questions, the editors turn to the distinguished Maxine Greene, Carl D. Glickman, Derrick P. Aldridge, Judith Warren Little, Marilyn Cochran-Smith, and Susan L. Lytle. In opening chapters they remind us that it is essential to tie what we do in staff development to larger goals. Because what we do in staff development can best be understood in terms of Contexts, Strategies, and Structures, the remainder of the book features distinguished educators who write from their own unique experiential and theoretical stances. Jacqueline Ancess describes how teachers in New York City secondary schools increase their own learning while improving student outcomes * Milbrey W. McLaughlin and Joel Zarrow demonstrate how teachers learn to use data to improve their practice and meet educational standards * Lynne Miller presents a case study of a long-lived school-university partnership * Beverly Falk recounts stories of teachers working together to develop performance assessments, to understand their student's learning, to re-think their curriculum, and much more * Laura Stokes analyzes a school that successfully uses inquiry groups. There are further contributions (including some from novice teachers) by Anna Richert Ershler, Ann Lieberman, Diane Wood, Sarah Warshauer Freedman, and Joseph P. McDonald. These powerful exemplars from practice provide a much-needed overview of what matters and what really works in professional development today.

This book explores the power of using media education to help urban teenagers develop their critical thinking and literacy skills. Drawing on his twenty years of experience working with inner-city youth at the acclaimed Educational Video Center (EVC) in New York City, Steven Goodman looks closely at both the problems and possibilities of this model of media education.

Building on extensive evidence that school-based teacher learning communities improve student outcomes, this book lays out an agenda to develop and sustain collaborative professional cultures. McLaughlin and Talbert - foremost scholars of school change and teaching contexts - provide an inside look at the processes, resources, and system strategies that are necessary to build vibrant school-based teacher learning communities. Offering a compelling, straightforward blueprint for action, this book: takes a comprehensive look at the problem of improving the quality of teaching across the United States, based on evidence and examples from the authors' nearly two decades of research; demonstrates how and why school-based teacher learning communities are bottom-line requirements for improved instruction; outlines the resources and supports needed to build and sustain a long-term school-based teacher professional community; discusses the nature of high-quality professional development to support learning and changes in teaching; and details the roles and responsibilities of policymakers at all levels of the school system.

Based on research and many years of lived experience in schools, the authors have become convinced that teachers learn best within their own work communities. In this volume, they explore what research and practice have to tell us about how such communities grow and develop, and how to negotiate the inherent tension between improving competence and building community.Using five themes that emerged from their studies of practice (context, capacity, content, commitment, and challenge), the authors examine selected research studies, personal reflections, and five cases that were especially commissioned for this volume in order to uncover new insights and understandings. The text begins with essays on research and long-term development projects and concludes with vignettes that address the following questions: What is the context of your program? How does your program deal with facilitating both competence and the building of community? What are the challenges and how has your program dealt with them?

A much-needed counterpoint to the sweeping rhetoric of reform, this important book offers a nuanced depiction of the challenges and possibilities at the school and classroom level. Through the experiences of urban high school teachers who partner with their local university, Del Prete provides unique insight into teaching and learning in the midst of reform. He effectively illustrates why focusing on teaching practice and school cultures - more than standards and accountability - is a more fruitful way to achieve real and lasting change. With powerful portraits from classrooms serving diverse and low-income students, this book: depicts the daily concerns and small victories of teachers determined to support all students in meaningful learning, and prepare them for postsecondary education; characterizes the importance of a coherent school learning culture, based on one of the most effective small urban schools in the country; and, illustrates the potential of university-school partnerships to support the development of teaching practices that will help close the achievement gap.

This book examines a policy that is one of the most powerful levers to improve teaching quality and advance teaching as a profession. Jennifer Goldstein presents the story of Rosemont, an urban district in California that created ""professional accountability"" with peer assistance and review (PAR), an alternative approach to teacher evaluation in which expert teachers evaluate their teacher peers. It challenges a number of long-held beliefs and practices in education-- adversarial labor relations, ""being nice,"" hierarchy, isolation, and negligence--to achieve very different teacher evaluation outcomes. This timely and accessible volume: Chronicles a rare case of a teacher union and school district partnering to improve teacher quality and teacher evaluation. Presents the most detailed study of PAR implementation, including its processes, challenges, and outcomes. Summarizes the state of PAR implementation across the country in an afterword by Susan Moore Johnson.

This is a unique insider’s look at the process that teachers experience when they assume leadership positions in their school, district, state, or writing project site. The text features vignettes by K–12 teachers, describing their individual leadership roles and experiences to show how teachers take charge in a variety of contexts. The authors identify four major themes: identity, collaboration, making conflict productive, and learning new practices. Through the teacher leaders’ own words, readers witness how the four themes are an integral part of daily practice. Chapters also examine what research indicates about these new and proliferating roles.How Teachers Become Leaders makes a significant contribution to our understanding of how teachers in leadership positions:Construct a new identity.Develop the skills and abilities to handle conflict and make it productive.Learn to facilitate the building of learning communities, helping teachers to collaborate with one another.Use the practices they already know and incorporate new ones into their work.Reframe the very meaning of leadership, making it work side by side rather than top/down.

New teachers need support from their peers and mentors to locate resources, information, new ideas, emotional support, and inspiration. This timely book explains the research and theory behind social networks (face-to-face and online), describes what effective social networking for educators looks like, reveals common obstacles that new teachers face in establishing support networks, and offers valuable practical advice. The author follows the stories of four first-year teachers, illustrating the significant impact that social support networks can have on teachers’ lives and challenging common misconceptions of professional support. This book offers action guides to help teachers become “intentional networkers,” as well as a companion website with tools for networking and collaboration. This is a must-have resource for pre- and in-service teachers.Book Features:Research-based frameworks on teachers’ social networks and professional support.Suggestions for mentors, teacher educators, and school administrators on how to help new teachers to effectively develop their social networks.A companion website that offers discussion forums, resources, and networking tools: www.thenetworkedteacher.com

What Should I Do? is a practical guide to the everyday dilemmas of the urban classroom. It offers a lifeline to both beginning teachers who are struggling to be successful and to the teacher educators who are trying to prepare them for these challenges. The author uses narratives of practice, written by novice teachers, to help readers experience a variety of dilemmas they are likely to encounter in the classroom. By engaging with and analysing the cases, readers come to see that the ''problems'' of teaching are actually ''dilemmas'' that have no clear-cut right or wrong solution, thus reducing the potential for frustration and despair often felt by teachers. This practical resource will empower teachers to transform the unpredictable world of troubled schools into places of learning and hope, for both themselves and their students. As a former teacher said, ''I wish I had read this book and realised that I wasn't expected to have all the answers. I would probably still be teaching.''

The use of protocols has quickly spread from conferences and workshops to everyday school and university settings. Now in its third edition, this perennial bestseller features substantial updates that take into account recent developments in the field of facilitative leadership. The authors have also added eleven totally new protocols, including the “Peer Review Protocol” and “Looking at Student Work with Equity in Mind.”This essential teaching and professional development tool includes: step-by-step descriptions of how educators can use protocols to study together, work on problems of practice, teach well, and explore students' work, explanations of the particular purpose of each protocol, discussions of the value that educators have found in using them, and helpful tips for facilitators, a free supplement on the Teachers College Press website with ""Abbreviated Protocols"" that can be downloaded and customised to suit each facilitator's needs.

This collection features original essays from international superstars in the field of educational change. Each “think piece” draws on the latest knowledge from research, policy, and practice to provide important insights for creating systemic, meaningful reform. The authors directly address contemporary challenges, misconceptions, and failed strategies, while also offering solutions, ideas, and guiding questions for examination.Unique in its breadth of ideas and diversity of voices, Leading Educational Change is must-reading for education decision makers on all levels, frontline practitioners, and everyone involved with children and adolescent learning. Together with the online companion Instructor’s Guide, this is also a perfect text for educational leadership and policy courses.

About half of all incoming ninth graders in urban districts will fail classes and drop out of school without a diploma. Failing at School starts with the premise that urban American high schools generate such widespread student failure not because of some fault of the students who attend them but because high schools were designed to stratify achievement and let only the top performers advance to higher levels of education. This is particularly true for low-income, racial/ethnic minority students. To get different results, Farrington proposes fundamental changes based on what we now know about how students learn, what motivates them to engage in learning, and what kinds of educational systems and structures would best support their learning.

This bestseller provides teachers and administrators with strategies for examining and discussing student work, such as essays, math problems, projects, artwork, and more. New for the Third Edition: The Microlab Protocol, a relatively quick and easy way to introduce groups to protocol-guided conversation; a new case focused on understanding the Common Core; and more detailed notes and strategies for facilitators.

This resource will help school leaders and other professional development providers conduct ongoing, structured learning opportunities for mathematics teachers (K–12). The authors present models for professional development and the preparation of PD leaders designed and field-tested as part of two research projects supported by the National Science Foundation. The Problem-Solving Cycle model and the Mathematics Leadership Preparation model focus on topics of primary interest to mathematics teachers—mathematics content, classroom instruction, and student learning. They are intentionally designed so that they can be tailored to meet the needs and interests of participating teachers and schools. Through engaging vignettes, the authors describe the models, summarize key research findings, and share lessons learned. The book also includes detailed examples of workshop activities for both teachers and PD leaders.