THE PRACTICE: Professional development should provide opportunities to gain an understanding of the theory underlying the knowledge and skills being learned.
Content Presented By:
National Partnership for Excellence & Accountability in Teaching

Resources related to this practice:

• Appropriating Conceptual and Pedagogical Tools for Teaching English: A Conceptual Framework for Studying Professional Development (1999)
  http://cela.albany.edu/tools/index.html

  The authors of this article from the ERIC Center for English Learning and Achievement propose using perspectives developed in a framework of activity theory to inform our understanding of teacher development. They explore the dimensions of appropriation of the tools teachers use to guide and implement classroom practice and reflect on activity theory's value as a context in which to assess learning-to-teach processes.

• Peer-Assisted Leadership (PAL) Program
  http://www.ed.gov/pubs/triedandtrue/peer.html

  Non-judgmental, inquiry-based approach to leadership development in which principals form partnerships to help each other reflect on their practice. PAL partners work together over a period of 4 to 8 months, shadowing and interviewing each other to collect data and analyze their leadership activities in context. Participants also meet regularly as a group, learning and practicing various inquiry skills (e.g., shadowing, interviewing, theme identification), as well as sharing and processing their partnership experiences. These meetings, together with the partnerships, provide a supportive forum for professional dialog that reduces isolation, deepens understanding, and supports change.

• Questioning and Understanding to Improve Learning and Thinking (QUILT)
  http://www.ed.gov/pubs/triedandtrue/quest.html

  Staff development program designed to increase students' true thinking time by helping teachers improve their classroom questioning techniques. Three major components are provided in the program: (1) Induction training: Teachers learn about effective questioning techniques during a 3-day (18-hour) introductory training period conducted by members of a local facilitation team; (2) Collegiums: Participants meet in seven 90-minute seminars throughout the school year to learn, share, and interact about particular questioning behaviors targeted for practice and improvement; and (3) Partnering: Teachers observe and are observed by partners six times during the year.

• Strategic Teaching and Reading Project (STRP)
  http://www.ed.gov/pubs/triedandtrue/strat.html

  Focus on professional development based on the premise that teachers must receive training and support in strategic teaching in order to help students become strategic readers and learners themselves. STRP, developed by the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL), emphasizes the team approach, which spreads the demands of instructional leadership among team members, builds on areas of expertise, fosters collaboration, and reduces threats to the continuity of the project that can come from staff turnover.

• Using Case Studies to Inform Professional Development
  http://www.ed.gov/pubs/triedandtrue/teach.html

  Describes the Mathematics Case Methods project that references a collection of cases for use by primary teachers and another for classroom discussion by students with teachers serving as facilitators. The cases portray real-life teaching dilemmas that build teacher capacity through the careful process of reflection and inquiry generated by facilitated discussions with other teachers. They assist teachers in developing deep pedagogical content knowledge, the ability to see the subject through the eyes of the student, and to know what instructional experiences can be used to capitalize on that child's thinking. Whether cases are content specific or deal with broader teaching issues, case discussants examine different approaches to teaching and learning, considering the benefits and drawbacks of each.

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