Professional Development (Inservice)

The purpose of this overview is to provide information about teacher coaching as it is used in schools, the research that examines this practice as a method of teacher professional development, and its impact on student outcomes.

Teacher preparation began in the mid-19th century with the normal school, a 2-year course of study that prepared candidates for teaching. This model remained unchanged until the early 20th century, when universities created the undergraduate model, which currently predominates.

The purpose of this overview is to provide an understanding of the research base on professional development and its impact on student achievement, as well as offer recommendations for future teacher professional development.

The purpose of this overview is to provide an understanding of the research base on professional development and its impact on student achievement, as well as offer recommendations for future teacher professional development.

This paper highlights the importance of making the preparation of teachers as scientific as possible by basing instruction on scientific evidence and making teaching an applied science.

This article shared information about the Wing Institute and demographics of the Summit participants. It introduced the Summit topic, sharing performance data on past efforts of school reform that focused on structural changes rather than teaching improvement. The conclusion is that the system has spent enormous resources with virtually no positive results. The focus needs to be on teaching improvement.

This paper examines teacher induction through the lens of scientific evidence.

This analysis examines the available research on effective teaching, how to impart these skills, and how to best transition teachers from pre-service to classroom with an emphasis on improving student achievement. It reviews current preparation practices and examine the research evidence on how well they are preparing teachers

This paper examines teacher induction through the lens of scientific evidence.

This paper reviews current teacher preparation in the context of its failure to include well-established evidence-based practices and identifies strategies for improvement.

Three 8th grade English teachers participated in this single-case multiple baseline experiment. These teachers were observed daily during classes that were inclusive to students with disabilities. Observations were conducted using the Classroom Teaching Scan. Within the Classroom Teaching Scan, a checklist of quality indicators for modeling was the primary dependent variable. Additionally, observations were scored using the Protocol for Language Arts Teaching Observations (PLATO, 2017). Participating students responded to curriculum-based measurement writing prompts throughout the study.

Minor changes in performance on the PLATO and CBM measures were demonstrated. However, these measures were descriptive in nature, not experimental. Therefore, more research over a sustained period of time is necessary to determine the effect of this professional development package on distal measures of teacher quality and student outcomes.

The primary research questions that drove this study are as follows: (1) To what extent can PBPD help teachers gain knowledge and implement EBCM practices? (2) To what extent does teachers’ use of EBCM practices maintain after the PBPD? (3) To what extent does student engagement increase after a teacher attended EBCM PBPD? (4) To what extent do self-reports of novice teacher efficacy and burnout change after completing EBCM PBPD?

This report presents selected findings from the school principal data files of the 2007-08 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS).  It provides the following descriptive information on school principals by school type, student characteristics, and other relevant categories: number, race/ethnicity, age, gender, college degrees, salary, hours worked, focus of work, years experience, and tenure at current school.

This article attempts an analysis of the accumulated literature on collegial relations with the intent of formulating a more robust conception, one that accounts for variation in teachers’ involvements with one another, the circumstances that surround those involvements, the meanings teachers and others attach to them, and the consequences that flow from them.

The U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Technology published this brief that summarizes research on the role of online communities of practice and social networks in supporting the professional performance of educators.

Intended as a text, this book emphasizes practical techniques of clinical supervision in working with teachers to help them improve their classroom teaching. It is divided into four units. The first provides necessary background for understanding techniques of clinical supervision. The next two units describe specific techniques for conducting clinical conferences and collecting observation data.

This case study examines the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation's promotion of the Homebuilders type of family preservation services as the sole model worthy of public support.

This article describes a school district administrator's research on optimal coaching experiences for classroom teachers. This research was done with the intent of gaining a better understanding of how coaching affects student learning. 

The authors examined the effects of six types of teacher professional learning activities on student achievement growth over 4 years using statewide longitudinal survey data collected from 467 middle school mathematics teachers in 91 schools merged with 11,192 middle school students' mathematics scores in a standardized assessment in Missouri. 

This issue is the second in a three-part series on quality teaching. The other two issues in the series focus on teacher recruitment and teachers' career structures and work environment. This issue examines research and expert consensus on teacher preparation,

This report highlights the work of New Teacher Center (NTC), a national nonprofit organization headquartered in Santa Cruz, California, that has partnered with states, districts, and policymakers to develop programs and policies that accelerate new teacher effectiveness.

This case study explored the use of the Bug-in-Ear (BIE) tool for undergraduate student-teacher supervision in the hands of a novice BIE2 coach, including the ease with which BIE equipment can be set up and operated by a novice coach and naïve users in the classroom. 

This policy brief focuses on the clinical aspects of teacher preparation in each of these key features. These aspects include the typical processes of clinical work, the location, and the duration of the training.

State-level policy support for teacher induction programs can help teachers realize their full potential, keep them in the profession, promote greater student learning, and save money. Higher education institutions and school districts must work together to provide high-quality and well-designed induction programs. 

Teacher preparation is at the core of most public universities’ missions, providing a vital function in pursuit of states’ ambitions for an educated and engaged populace. The member institutions of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities strive to continuously improve the development of teachers who will prepare future generations in their communities for success in college and careers.

The work of the New Teacher Center (NTC) highlights the importance of the conditions for success in its Program Theory of Action model. This paper also provides Conditions for Success Self-Evaluation Worksheet that will help you to evaluate your program’s readiness to effectively implement the Teacher Induction Pathway presented in the Adult Education Teacher Induction Toolkit. 

This article reviews empirical articles published over the past two decades to determine what and how student teaching experiences contribute to preservice teachers’ development. While keeping this central focus, the article also considers the implications of student teaching for the schools that play host to it and for the students who attend those schools.

Despite increasing emphasis on preparing more and better teachers and despite the near universal presence of student teaching across teacher education programs (TEPs), numerous questions about what and how student teaching experiences contribute to preservice teachers’ development remain unanswered.

This article describes the efforts of eleven universities and colleges to assess their teacher education programs based on broad, commonly held outcomes.

This article discusses instructional coaching as well as the eight factors that can increase the likelihood that coaching will be a real fix for a school. Instructional coaching holds much potential for improving the way teachers teach and the way students learn, but that potential will only be realized if leaders plan their coaching program with care. 

This Research & Policy Brief addresses the aspect of the teacher support system that is perhaps the most important and often the most weakly implemented: teacher learning and development.

Significant dollars are spent each school year on professional development programs to improve teachers’ effectiveness. This study assessed the integrity with which pre-service teachers used a differential reinforcement of alternate behavior (DRA) strategy taught to them during their student teaching experience.

This study evaluated the effectiveness of the simSchool (v.1) simulation as a tool for preparing student teachers for actual classroom teaching. Twenty-two student teachers used the simulation for a practice session and two test sessions; data included objective performance statistics generated by the simulation program, self-rated performance data, and qualitative opinions and perceptions from participants.

Recent calls to improve the quality of education in schools have drawn attention to the importance of teachers’ preparation for work in classroom settings. Although the practicum has long been the traditional means for pre-service teachers to learn and practice classroom teaching, it does not always offer student teachers the time, safe practice experiences, repetition, or extensive feedback needed for them to gain adequate knowledge, skills, and confidence.

Discusses the coming professionalization of psychology after World War II with the synthesis of the Boulder Conference on Graduate Education in Clinical Psychology in 1949.

This study examined results associated with a field-based undergraduate early childhood teacher education program designed as a response to calls for enhanced field experiences and community-situated teacher education that narrows the preparation-to-practice gap.

Using professional self-regulation in medicine as a model, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future has proposed sweeping changes in how teachers are trained and licensed, claiming that the reforms are well-grounded in research. This paper argues that the research literature offers far less support for the Commission's recommendations than is claimed. 

When mentors are well-selected, well-trained, and given the time to work intensively with new teachers, they not only help average teachers become good, but good teachers become great. And because new teachers are most often assigned to the poorest schools and the most challenging classrooms, instructional-mentoring programs provide a powerful lever for closing the teacher-quality gap and ensuring that all students, regardless of their backgrounds, have a real opportunity to succeed.

Researchers at Learning Sciences International wanted to take a closer look at the impact PLCs have on the schools we work with. We hoped to tease out answers to two related questions about PLCs. When PLCs are working at optimum levels, what is their relationship to student achievement? Secondly, do cohesive and focused high-functioning PLCs have any impact on teacher morale?

The main body of the report takes readers through the four stages that this study used to define the teacher career continuum: Preservice, Novice, Career, and Teacher Leader stages.

This study examines the impact of a nationally disseminated professional development program, Developing Mathematical Ideas (DMI), on teachers' specialized knowledge for teaching mathematics and illustrates how such research could be conducted.

This study used a delayed multiple-baseline across-participants design to analyze the effects of coaching on special education teachers’ implementation of function-based interventions with students with severe disabilities. This study also examined the extent to which teachers could generalize function-based interventions in different situations. 

This article reports on a 4-year longitudinal study of the effects of Literacy Collaborative (LC), a schoolwide reform model that relies primarily on the oneon-one coaching of teachers as a lever for improving student literacy learning.

As part of a federally funded study of NCLB, RAND Corporation researchers, in collaboration with researchers from the American Institutes for Research, analyzed the progress that states, districts, and schools have made in implementing the teacher qualification provisions of NCLB through the 2004–2005 school year. 

The Characteristics of Public and Private Elementary School Principals in the United States is a subsection of the NCES 2011-12 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). It provides descriptive statistics on K-12 school principals in areas such as: race, gender, education level, salary, experience, and working conditions.

The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) was awarded a grant from the
National Science Foundation to conduct a meta analysis study with the goal of providing
state and local education leaders with scientifically-based evidence regarding the effects of
teacher professional development on improving student learning. 

This paper seeks to estimate the effect that Career Leader (CL) program has had on teachers’ career decisions, specifically their decisions to stay in a specific school district or to remain in the teaching field.

Teacher professional development is essential to efforts to improve our schools. This article maps the terrain of research on this important topic. It first provides an overview of what we have learned as a field, about effective professional development programs and their impact on teacher learning. 

Teacher professional development is essential to efforts to improve our schools. This article maps the terrain of research on this important topic. It first provides an overview of what we have learned as a field, about effective professional development programs and their impact on teacher learning. 

CEELO reviewed data on 21 states’ principal licensure requirements, conducted structured interviews with experts on principal preparation and professional development in 7 states, and spoke with staff at the National Association of Elementary School Principals and the National Institute for School Leadership.

Using data from a large urban school district, this article tests the impact of structural, human, and social factors on the emergence of school-based professional community and examines the extent to which such developments in turn promote learning and experimentation among faculty

Effective teacher professional development is defined as structured professional learning
activities which result in changes in teacher practice and improvements in student learning
outcomes. Superintendents face common challenges unique to the rural environment which
hinder the delivery of effective teacher professional development in rural school districts.

This report tells policymakers what metrics they must track in order to make the best decisions regarding the supply and training of school leaders.

This essay provides examples from reading and math curricula, describes how experts have, for ideological reasons, shunned some solutions that do display robust evidence of efficacy, then examines how public impatience has forced other professions to “grow up” and accept accountability and scientific evidence. 

This document includes the excerpts of five articles that provide a substantial evidence-based argument for the power of collaborative communities to improve teaching and learning. 

This paper presents the results from a field experiment that examines the effects of nonfinancial performance feedback on the behavior of professionals working for an insurance repair company.

This study evaluates the effectiveness of implementation on increasing the use of a practice behavior who attended a one-day continuing education class.

This paper examines the issue of efficacy of value-added measures in evaluating teachers. This question is important in understanding whether value-added analysis provides unbiased estimates of teachers’ impact on student achievement and whether these teachers improve long-term student outcomes.

This study considered early career teacher attrition as an identity making process that involves a complex negotiation between individual and contextual factors.

The purpose of this overview is to provide information about teacher coaching as it is used in schools, the research that examines this practice as a method of teacher professional development, and its impact on student outcomes.

The purpose of this overview is to provide an understanding of the research base on professional development and its impact on student achievement, as well as offer recommendations for future teacher professional development.

The purpose of this overview is to provide an understanding of the research base on professional development and its impact on student achievement, as well as offer recommendations for future teacher professional development.

This chapter from "Studying Teacher Education"  focus on the research procedures and the impact claims of researchers who study the complex phenomenon commonly labeled as a methods course or a teacher-
education-related field experience in a school or community. 

Congress should redefine “professional development” and reengineer Title IIA to focus strictly on continuous performance improvement—of people and organizations—while keeping implementation flexible. A new Title IIA would make certain that state, district, and school leaders have the capacity required to manage professional development activities and resources more effectively to achieve Title II’s vital student achievement goals.

This article evaluates whether providing coaching between practice sessions in teacher education courses leads to more rapid development of skills and changes in teachers’ beliefs about student behavior, using mixed-reality simulations as a practice space and standardized assessment platform. We randomly assigned 105 prospective teachers to different coaching conditions between simulation sessions integrated into a teacher preparation program.

This study aimed to look into this by asking, “Which features of high quality online professional development were noted by participating educators in a statewide online teacher professional development program?” A survey was used to collect educators’ voices in this FIP professional development (PD) program.

This study investigated inner-city middle school teachers' perceptions of the importance of time in learning and sharing information. The survey identified ways that teachers shared what they had learned and discussed factors that helped or hindered them in sharing. Teacher interviews examined: knowledge, skills, and insights gained by participating in the EELC.

The framework for teaching is a research-based set of components of instruction that are grounded in a constructivist view of learning and teaching. The framework defines four levels of performance--Unsatisfactory, Basic, Proficient, and Distinguished--for each element, providing a valuable tool that all teachers can use.

Much of what teachers need to know to be successful is invisible to lay observers, leading to the view that teaching requires little formal study and to frequent disdain for teacher education programs. The weakness of traditional program models that are collections of largely unrelated courses reinforce this low regard. This article argues that we have learned a great deal about how to create stronger, more effective teacher education programs.

Teachers go into debt to enter a career that pays noticeably less than their alternatives—especially if they work in high-poverty schools— and reach the profession through a smorgasbord of training options, from excellent to awful, often followed by little mentoring or help. As a result, while some teachers are well prepared, many students in needy schools experience a revolving door of inexperienced and underprepared teachers.

Research shows how schools can create more powerful professional development experiences.

This paper reviews 35 methodologically rigorous studies that have demonstrated a positive link between teacher professional development, teaching practices, and student outcomes. 

Going Virtual! 2010 is a follow-up report to the Going Virtual! Research series started in 2007. The purpose of the series is to describe current trends on the status of professional development for K-12 online teachers, as well as identify the unique needs and challenges faced by these instructors.

This chapter provides a survey of what is known about professional development for both brick and mortar and online teachers and uses this knowledge as a springboard to suggest policy and research implication of professional development and K-12 online teacher. 

Conducted 2 laboratory and 1 field experiment with 24, 24, and 8 undergraduates to investigate the effects of external rewards on intrinsic motivation to perform an activity. In each experiment, Ss performed an activity during 3 different periods, and observations relevant to their motivation were made. External rewards were given to the experimental Ss during the 2nd period only, while the control Ss received no rewards. 

This article offers ideas to improve the quality of inquiry into teacher learning, one of the most critical targets of education reform. 

The author suggests that we apply recent research knowledge to improve our conceptualization, measures, and methodology for studying the effects of teachers’ professional development on teachers and students. She makes the case that there is a research consensus to support the use of a set of core features and a common conceptual framework in professional development impact studies.

This paper discusses best practices in teachers’ professional development (PD) in the United States. We begin by presenting a conceptual framework for effective professional development, which suggests five key features that make professional development effective—content focus, active learning, coherence, sustained duration, and collective participation.

This paper discusses best practices in teachers’ professional development (PD) in the United States (U.S.).

This article examines the effects of professional development on teachers’ instruction. Using a purposefully selected sample of about 207 teachers in 30 schools, in 10 districts in five states, we examine features of teachers’ professional development and its effects on changing teaching practice in mathematics and science from 1996–1999. We found that professional development focused on specific instructional practices increases teachers’ use of those practices in the classroom. Furthermore, we found that specific features, such as active learning opportunities, increase the effect of the professional development on teacher’s instruction.

This paper examines data on 39 charter schools and correlates these data with school effectiveness. We find that class size, per-pupil expenditure, teacher certification, and teacher training—are not correlated with school effectiveness. In stark contrast, we show that frequent teacher feedback, the use of data to guide instruction, high-dosage tutoring, increased instructional time, and high expectations—explains approximately 45 percent of the variation in school effectiveness.

"But I am addressing my remarks not just to those of you assembled today in this majestic Rotunda but to a generation of college students, professionals rethinking their careers, military veterans, retirees and others who may be thinking of becoming a teacher. Put plain and simple, this country needs an army of great, new teachers—and I can think of no better place to start recruiting them then in Thomas Jefferson's hallowed halls."

This meta-analysis examines the impact of professional development on program quality and educational outcomes for children in early childhood programs. The study attempts to answer three questions: (1) evaluate the impact of in-service programs for early childhood professional development, (2) identify program characteristics that moderate the effects of training on quality of service, and (3) identify the links between in-service training to childhood outcomes. 

This paper draws upon a structured analysis of over 300 research-based papers on mentoring across three discipline areas in an attempt to make more valid inferences about the nature and outcomes of mentoring.

This paper explores the implementation of a professional development program (PDP) for school principals. Two methods for measuring fidelity of implementation of the PDP are examined

This paper looks at methods to enable teachers to generalize skills taught in pre-service to use in the classroom.

This paper exams teachers' views on unions, tenure, pay-for-performance, alternative certification, and other issues and finds that while most teachers are strong supporters of standards, a sense of vulnerability, along with fears of politics and favoritism, make them loyal to the tenure system, loyal to their unions, and highly skeptical about pay tied to student test scores.

The purpose of this paper is to present qualitative evidence on the processes and forces that shape school administrator career paths.

In reporting on one aspect of a national center's research on teacher education, this chapter examines two U.S. programs in which experienced teachers are expected to play major roles in the induction and socialization of beginning teachers. By exploring connections between what experienced teachers in the two projects do and the organizational and intellectual contexts within which they work, this analysis demonstrates that the contextual conditions of mentoring can lead to striking differences in the definition and enactment of mentoring roles. 

This paper reports the results of a literature review on the subject of beginning teacher induction, presenting a conceptually oriented discussion of the induction literature.

This study employed a randomized experiment to examine differences in teacher and student learning from professional development (PD) in two modalities: online and face-to-face. 

The Education Policy Institute and Ambition Institute were commissioned by the Wellcome Trust to examine the costs and benefits of a policy entitling all teachers to thirty-five hours of high-quality professional development every year. This rapid review provides evidence to help model these costs and benefits.

Teaching methods and field experience courses that focus on teaching make up only a small fraction of the postsecondary coursework required for teachers, especially for prospective secondary teachers. 

This special issue of Learning Disabilities Research and Practice is dedicated to Dr. Stanley L. Deno. For most of his career, Stan was a Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Minnesota, where in the mid-1970s, he initiated a systematic program of research on what eventually came to be known as curriculum-based measurement (CBM) Through CBM, Stan’s impact on the field of special education and beyond has been enormous.

A 5-year prospective, quasi-experimental investigation demonstrated that grade-level teams in 9 Title 1 schools using an inquiry-focused protocol to solve instructional problems significantly increased achievement. Teachers applying the inquiry protocol shifted attribution of improved student performance to their teaching rather than external causes.

This workbook provides exercises for improving the decision-making of helping professionals.

This article aimed to present frameworks and practices coaches can use with classroom teachers to facilitate the implementation of evidence-based interventions in schools.

What we can do to support teachers: We must improve both the types and the usefulness of the professional supports offered and ensure that teachers have the resources needed to access those opportunities. Strengthening the system of supports includes increasing teachers' influence over their day-to-day work and developing cultures of learning.

This study uses a national probability sample of 1,027 mathematics and science teachers to provide the first large-scale empirical comparison of effects of different characteristics of professional development on teachers' learning.

The Every Student Succeeds Act creates opportunities for policymakers to re-imagine accountability in schools—and not only by incorporating additional measures of student success into outcome-based accountability regimes.

This Story From the Field examines how Denver and five other school districts have constructed and are using these systems as they seek to better train, hire and support school principals.

The study examines whether comprehensive teacher induction programs lead to higher teacher retention rates and other positive teacher and student outcomes as compared to prevailing, generally less comprehensive approaches to supporting new teachers

To evaluate the impact of comprehensive teacher induction relative to the usual induction support, the authors conducted a randomized experiment in a set of districts that were not already implementing comprehensive induction.

In this paper, we describe the results of the first large-scale study, based on a unique data set from North Carolina, assessing the relationship between the certification of teachers by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) and elementary level student achievement

Considering that having a quality teacher is the foremost in-school predictor of students' success, ensuring teacher excellence is vital to the nation's educational system. In "Creating a New Teaching Profession," diverse scholars assess the state of human capital development in the teaching profession today and how to progress.

In this paper we examine the mobility of early-career teachers of varying quality, measured using value-added estimates of teacher performance.

A growing literature documents the importance of student teaching placements for teacher development. Emerging evidence from this literature highlights the importance of the mentor teacher who supervises this placement, as teachers tend to be more effective when they student teach with a mentor who is a more effective teacher.

New teachers have unique needs as they enter the classroom. Ensuring that they have high-quality support allows them to become effective teachers faster and builds their confidence to stay longer in the profession.

An analysis by The New York Times of the city’s signature report-card system shows that schools run by graduates of the celebrated New York City Leadership Academy — which the mayor created and helped raise more than $80 million for — have not done as well as those led by experienced principals or new principals who came through traditional routes.

Robust evidence of the effectiveness of professional development for teachers is limited. This study tested a pedagogy-based, collaborative PD approach for impact on the quality of teaching. This study illuminates how to support teacher learning for measurable positive impacts on teaching quality and teacher morale.

The authors use their experience with a professional development project to propose a model of teacher community in the workplace. They describe a project that brought together 22 English and social studies teachers (and a special education and ESL teacher) from an urban high school over a period of 2 1/2 years.

A research synthesis confirms the difficulty of translating professional development into student achievement gains despite the intuitive and logical connection. Those responsible for planning and implementing professional development must learn how to critically assess and evaluate the effectiveness of what they do.

A research synthesis confirms the difficulty of translating professional development into student achievement gains despite the intuitive and logical connection. Those responsible for planning and implementing professional development must learn how to critically assess and evaluate the effectiveness of what they do.

Over the last two years, we’ve looked at the existing research and policy guidance on teacher development, with a critical eye to help us better understand what we already know. We’ve noticed that the common threads running through many previous studies, reports and commentaries on teacher development—once you dig into footnotes and peel back the compelling prose—are logical, practical ideas grounded in a selective review of the evidence base. 

This report presents national data on teachers and teaching from the Schools and Staffing
Survey (SASS) and other sources. Where data permit, the report compares findings from the
early to mid-1990s with findings from the 1980s.

This report provides descriptive information on traditional public, charter, and private school principals over the period of 1987-88 through 2011-12. It includes comparative data on number of principals, gender, race/ethnicity, age, advance degrees, principal experience, teaching experience, salaries, hours worked, focus of work, experience and tenure at current schools, etc.

This study will discuss a guiding definition for blended learning, benefits, team support, policy, management issues, rationale for expansion, professional development, purchasing, funding, evaluation, and lenses of the future and implications.

NSDC opens the door to professional learning that ensures great teaching for every student every day

The authors report an investigation of a five-step structured study-group approach to promoting a self-sustaining learning community that supports teachers in developing the ‘habits of mind’ necessary for improving literacy acquisition and development for urban African American students attending a low-performing, high-poverty elementary school. 

This paper defines and describes what is meant by "professional learning community"; describes what happens when a school staff studies, works, plans, and takes action collectively on behalf of increased learning for students; and discusses what is known about creating such communities of professionals in schools.

This study have sought to investigate teacher success in Hong Kong. The study aims to achieve the following objectives: to acquire an initial understanding of how Hong Kong teachers conceptualize teacher success, to identify the factors hindering teacher success; to study the relationship between professional development and teacher success.

This review critically examines 15 empirical studies, conducted since the mid 1980s, on the effects of support, guidance, and orientation programs— collectively known as induction — for beginning teachers.

This research evaluated the impact of structured and intensive teacher induction programs over a three-year time period, beginning when teachers first enter the teaching profession. The current report presents findings from the second year of the evaluation and a future report will present findings from the third and final year.

Improving the use of evidence in teacher preparation is one of the greatest challenges and
opportunities for our field. The chapters in this volume explore how data availability, quality,
and use within and across preparation programs shed light on the structures, policies, and
practices associated with high-quality teacher preparation.

This paper describes “how” to effectively implement lasting school improvement initiatives that maximize leadership, develop talent, amplify instructional transformation, and shift the culture.

This piece describes the widely held perception among education leaders that we already  know how to help teachers improve, and that we could achieve our goal of great teaching in far more classrooms if we just applied what we know more widely. 

In order to learn more about how school districts support educator data use, we examined the intersection of data use and professional learning in three school districts. We found that a chasm exists in how educators frame―data use, with some framing data use as a student-oriented improvement process, and others framing it as a mere exercise in the accountability of teacher programs.

This article reports on a longitudinal study designed to explore these questions. In 1999, researchers from The Project on the Next Generation of Teachers selected and interviewed a diverse group of 50 new teachers in the Massachusetts public schools.

the authors build on this body of work by further examining how working conditions predict both teachers‘ job satisfaction and their career plans.

This book provides research as well as case studies of successful professional development strategies and practices for educators.

This paper highlights the importance of making the preparation of teachers as scientific as possible by basing instruction on scientific evidence and making teaching an applied science.

Public school teachers often receive training in a professional development seminar or workshop format. These formats may be ineffective for teaching specific skills intended to be used in the classroom due to lack of practice opportunities.

this study presents and apply a framework for measuring the cost of coaching programs to 3 schools. Then the study discusses strategies for reducing the average cost of instructional coaching. 

Schools devote substantial resources to teacher professional development each year. Yet studies show much of this investment is directed toward ineffective short-term workshops that have little impact on instructional change or student outcomes. At the same time, more intensive job-embedded forms of professional learning, such as instructional coaching, require substantially more resources than traditional professional development.

This book examines the use of video recording to to improve teacher performance. The book shows how every classroom can easily benefit from setting up a camera and hitting “record”.  

The authors introduce Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) as a way of representing what teachers need to know about technology and argue for the role of authentic design-based activities in the development of this knowledge.

This study review the empirical literature on teacher coaching and conduct meta-analyses to estimate the mean effect of coaching programs on teachers’ instructional practice and students’ academic achievement.

Teacher coaching has emerged as a promising alternative to traditional models of professional development. We review the empirical literature on teacher coaching and conduct meta-analyses to estimate the mean effect of coaching programs on teachers’ instructional practice and students’ academic achievement.

The authors conducted a comprehensive review of research to identify the impact of coaching on changes in preservice and in-service teachers’ implementation of evidence-based practices.

This study examined the effects of in-service plus follow-up coaching on first grade teachers’ accurate delivery of three research-based strategies during math instruction.

This study examined the effects of in-service support plus coaching on kindergarten teachers’ accurate delivery of group instructional units in math.

The seven guiding principles in this manuscript offer research-based directions for literacy coaching.

This article discusses differences that are hypothesized to exist between hard‐ (technical) and soft‐ (intrapersonal and interpersonal) skills training that we believe impact the degree of training transfer achieved. 

This study examines the impact of a Teacher Versus Student Game, a program that is based upon The Good Behavior Game (GBG). This paper found that the game increased teachers rates of praise; however, the teachers gradually decreased their use of BSP over time.

In trying to improve American public schools, educators, policymakers, and philanthropists are overselling the role of the highly skilled individual teacher and undervaluing the benefits that come from teacher collaborations that strengthen skills, competence, and a school’s overall social capital.

In this paper we examine social capital and its relationship with performance at the organizational level.

The purpose of this paper is to examine relationships between principal leadership, dimensions of school capacity, and teacher professional learning in 32 Hong Kong primary schools.

This paper draws on intensive case studies of teacher knowledge, practice, and learning among teachers of mathematics and English in two high schools to take up the problem of how classroom teaching practice comes to be known, shared, and developed among teachers through their out-of-classroom interactions.

Teacher professional development (PD) is seen as a promising intervention to improve teacher knowledge, instructional practice, and ultimately student learning. While research finds instances of significant program effects on teacher knowledge, little is known about how long these effects last.

This article analyses findings from two studies conducted collaboratively across two educational settings, New Zealand and England, in 2001–2002. These studies examined the impact of national educational policy reforms on the nature of primary teachers’ work and sense of their own professionalism and compared these impacts across the two countries.

In this paper, the authors use value-added methods to examine the relationship between a school’s effectiveness and the recruitment, assignment, development and retention of its teachers.

In the past 3 decades, the concept of professional community has gained considerable
momentum in the theoretical and empirical studies in this field. At the same time, the concept
has faced conceptual and methodological difficulties in that as yet no universal definition
has been formulated and that its operationalization differs in the various empirical studies
conducted on the subject.

This paper reports findings of a study that is grounded in the assumption that the ways in which teachers interact outside their classrooms may be critical to the future of school restructuring and the effects of restructuring on students.

Sitting in our schools right now is one of the most powerful levers we have for deepening equity: teacher teams focused on developing collective expertise in high-leverage, equity promoting practices. One conversation at a time, teams like the one in the vignette above, a composite of teams we have observed over time, chip away at low expectations, racism, and cultural biases that have marginalized special education students, English language learners, students of color, and others who have not traditionally been served well by schools.

This paper examines teacher induction through the lens of scientific evidence.

Teacher educators are under increasing pressure to show that preparation programs meaningfully impact instruction among pre-service teachers, who are then influential in student learning. This external pressure is challenging for teacher educators. We present an early field-based course and applied teaching project to examine teaching practices and pupil outcomes.

This study investigates teacher empowerment in schools that have at least four years of experience with some form of decentralized or school-based management. 

The authors show school and district-level administrators how to set the priorities and support the practices that will help all teachers become expert teachers. Their five-part framework is based on what research tells us about how expertise develops. 

The goal of the Massachusetts Educator Evaluation Framework is to support student learning by providing educators with enhanced opportunities for professional growth and feedback for improvement. Distributing leadership is a key strategy to ensure the provision of high quality feedback.

This paper describe four essential elements of effective principals: principal standards, high-quality training, selective hiring, and a combination of solid on-the-job support and performance evaluation, especially for new hires.

This study documents the implementation of research-based strategies to minimize the occurrence of reading difficulties in a first-grade population. Three strategies were implemented. 

Th is publication is an eff ort to answer basic questions and to inform and engage more people in strengthening the quality and improving the results of professional development.

Many urban schools today look to instructional teams as a means to decrease professional isolation, promote teachers' ongoing development, and substantially reduce well-documented variation in teachers' effectiveness across classrooms. Recent research finds that teams can contribute to teachers' development and increased student achievement.

Supervising student teachers effectively assures that vital professional experience will be of maximum benefit to the pre-service teacher. Mentor teachers and university faculty who work with student teachers need specific training to make the experience rewarding, while the student teacher requires specific information for professional success. 

This book introduces the foundations of the recently revised professional educational leadership standards and provides an in-depth explanation and application of each one.

The book recommends that federal and state policy makers take on the responsibility of promoting equal access to technology while the federal government and foundations play an important role by supporting the development, evaluation, and revision of OTPD.

This study examines the impact of 2 forms of professional development on prekindergarten teachers' early language and literacy practice: coursework and coaching. 

NTC's most recent report explores: 1) The impact on teacher retention rates, 2) Expected months of additional learning for students and potential of lifetime earnings, 3) Districts' expected savings on this investment. 4) Long-term economic impact of students and in their communities.

Soft skills complement hard skills and have a significant impact on the ability of teachers to do their job and on their employability. Soft skill components acquired by future holistic human capital are communicative skills, critical thinking and problem solving skills, team work skill, life-long learning and management of information, entrepreneurship skill, ethics, moral and professional skill, and leadership skill.

No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 ESEA Reauthorization

In this article, implementation is proposed as the link between evidence-based practices and positive outcomes. Strategies for promoting implementation through “enlightened professional development” are proposed.

Under the 1998 reauthorization of Title II of the Higher Education Act, the secretary of education is required to issue annual reports to Congress on the state of teacher quality nationwide. "Meeting the Highly Qualified Teachers Challenge" is the inaugural report on this important issue.

This policy report provides a look at the decline in the enrollment of American teacher preparation programs, along with potential consequences for schools and the student they serve. 

This article focuses on the response of one urban middle school to a major school reform initiative.

This article examines the salary trajectory of teachers as they move up the career ladder into leadership positions.

This study examined the influence of three year-long cohorts of elementary school teachers' participating in a learner-centered mathematics professional development program.

While teachers continue to learn and grow as they gain experience, the foundation for their skills is provided by their initial teacher education program. And of all the parts of teacher education, none is more important than clinical practice. In general, the field of education has long recognized and championed the importance of practice.

Effects of a 1-semester professional development (PD) intervention that included expert coaching with Head Start teachers were investigated in a randomized controlled trial with 88 teachers and 759 children. 

Describes a Sonoma County (California) school district's peer coaching program designed to meet the needs of new, probationary, and experienced teachers. The program succeeded because participation was voluntary, the training empowered teachers and improved their coaching skills, and teachers continued to meet as a group and learn from each other.

This report examines the career paths of beginning public school teachers and how these career paths vary by characteristics during the teachers' first year of teaching and most recent year of teaching. 

The term “mega system” derives from a field research project at the Laboratory for Student Success at Temple University that studied comprehensive school reform. Comprehensive school reform moves a whole school forward by dramatically changing the way it operates.

This study evaluted the impact of coaching on the implementation of an intervention.  Coaching with higher rates of performance feedback resulted in the highest level of treatment integrity.

The objective in this review was to summarize and critique empirical research on the impact of beginning teacher induction on teacher retention and teacher quality (particularly studies in which teacher effectiveness was evaluated by using student achievement measures).

The authors use research-based "impact modeling" to show how a strategic approach to recruiting and supporting rookie teachers could yield as much as 4.2 extra months of student learning. We provide 5 recommendations for school systems to leverage their investment in structures that provide rookie teachers with both shelter and development.

This Statistics in Brief provides a snapshot of the state of teacher professional development activities among U.S. public school teachers using data collected through the 2011-12 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) Public School Teacher Questionnaire. This report relies on data provided by public school teachers about their professional development activities during the 2011-12 school year.

This Statistics in Brief provides a snapshot of the state of teacher professional development activities among U.S. public school teachers using data collected through the 2011-12 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) Public School Teacher Questionnaire.

Most children with autism rely on schools as their primary source of intervention, yet research has suggested that teachers rarely use evidence-based practices. To address the need for improved educational outcomes, a previously tested consultation intervention called the Collaborative Model for Promoting Competence and Success was evaluated in a 2nd randomized controlled trial, with the addition of a web-based group. 

In this article, we describe and report on the results of a study in Texas that tested 2 models of professional development for classroom teachers as a way of improving their practices and increasing the reading achievement of their students. 

In this article, we describe and report on the results of a study in Texas that tested 2 models of professional development for classroom teachers as a way of improving their practices and increasing the reading achievement of their students. This study demonstrates the potential of coaching as a viable model of the professional development of reading teachers.

This study examines how mathematics and science teachers' classroom assessment
practices were affected by the National Board Certification process.

This article discuss how "Micro-Credentialing" offer an opportunity to shift away from credit-hour and continuing-education requirements that dominate the PD apparatus in most states, toward a system based on evidence of progress in specific instructional skills.

A greater emphasis on measuring the outputs of teacher preparation programs such as practice-based evaluations has increased the need for teacher educators to examine “best practice” for developing the skill-based competencies of teacher candidates. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of practice and feedback on teacher candidates’ knowledge and skill acquisition of a specific evidence-based practice, the provision of opportunities to respond.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of multilevel support on first-grade teachers' accurate use of research-based strategies during beginning reading instruction and the extent to which teachers maintained use of these strategies. 

This module will not focus on the empirical challenges to developing measures of principal effectiveness and their accompanying reward systems, but rather will focus on what is known and will provide guidance on those issues upon which there is agreement.

In our day-to-day roles as a school system leader and the CEO of the nonprofit curriculum publisher Zearn, we focus on the moments of learning that occur between students and teachers—and on how personalized learning can make those moments richer and more frequent. 

This study examines whether such programs - collectively known as induction - have a positive effect on the retention of beginning teachers.

Given the numbers, it is clear that general education teachers should possess the tools necessary to help students with disabilities succeed. Teacher preparation programs can be a powerful and critical lever for ensuring this support; however, most teacher preparation programs do not center students with disabilities in their curriculum for general education teachers.

Professional development (PD) has been defined as facilitated teaching and learning experiences designed to enhance practitioners' knowledge, skills, and dispositions as well as their capacity to provide high-quality early learning experiences for young children. The purpose of this study was to use a framework from the National Professional Development Center on Inclusion (2008) to characterize key components of early childhood PD by conducting a descriptive systematic review of empirical literature.

High teacher turnover imposes numerous burdens on the schools and districts from which teachers depart. Some of these burdens are explicit and take the form of recruiting, hiring, and training costs. Others are more hidden and take the form of changes to the composition and quality of the teaching staff. This study focuses on the latter. 

The authors surveyed student teachers in a yearlong internship and their peers in a traditional semester-long internship to compare perceptions across different practice teaching experiences. The authors discuss the outcomes regarding continuing challenges professional development programs face when building and sustaining effective clinical experiences.

This analysis examines the available research on effective teaching, how to impart these skills, and how to best transition teachers from pre-service to classroom with an emphasis on improving student achievement. It reviews current preparation practices and examine the research evidence on how well they are preparing teachers

This book is the core of a larger, comprehensive professional development program in
student involved classroom assessment that teaches standards of assessment quality, and
how to match achievement targets to assessment methods.

This 3-year study examined the dynamics of school culture in 3 elementary schools that
have beaten the odds in improving low-income and minority student achievement.

The lived experience of principal supervisors in Long Beach Unified School District consisted of an intentional and aligned system of principal evaluations, coaching, and principal supervisor professional learning community. Principal supervisors also identified practices such as increased visits to schools and classrooms with principals, central office departments focused on teaching and learning, and the traits of creating an environment of vulnerability and growth mindset as an important skill set.

In this article, the authors describe key features of the multi-tiered support (MTS) continuum of intervention and assessment and present a case study to illustrate implementation of some components of the framework with four middle school teachers.

This study examines how high-quality professional development can promote the diffusion of effective teaching strategies among teachers through collaboration. Drawing on longitudinal and socio-metric data from a study of writing professional development in 39 schools, this study shows that teachers’ participation in professional development is associated with providing more help to colleagues on instructional matters.

The National Teacher and Principal Survey is completed every four years soliciting descriptive information from principals and teachers across the 50 states. A few highlights include: Sixty percent of school principals have been at their schools for three years or less. 

This study examined the effectiveness of a classroom teacher intervention, the Targeted Reading Intervention (TRI), in helping struggling readers in kindergarten and first grade. This intervention used biweekly literacy coaching in the general education classroom to help classroom teachers use diagnostic strategies with struggling readers in one-on-one 15-min sessions.  

Teachers make a difference. The success of any plan for improving educational outcomes depends on the teachers who carry it out and thus on the abilities of those attracted to the field and their preparation. Yet there are many questions about how teachers are being prepared and how they ought to be prepared.

"The Mirage" describes the widely held perception among education leaders that they already know how to help teachers improve, and that they could achieve their goal of great teaching in far more classrooms if they just applied what they knew more widely.

"The Mirage" describes the widely held perception among education leaders that they already know how to help teachers improve, and that they could achieve their goal of great teaching in far more classrooms if they just applied what they knew more widely.

Current prereferral intervention team (PIT) regulations, prevalence, membership, goals, and intervention information from two national telephone surveys are reported. There was no clear school-based consensus on PIT goals. PITs most commonly recommended additional services, testing, or easy classroom interventions and seldom recommended substantive instructional modifications.

The hypothesis that guided this study was that the degree of teacher professionalism in a school would be related to (a) the professional orientation of principals in their exercise of administrative authority—especially, the extending of adaptive discretion to teachers in the conduct of their work—and (b) the trust evident among various actors in the school community.

The U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Technology published this report that details the results of exploratory research on how to design and manage online communities of practice for educators.

A year-long researcher-teacher professional development group with a next-year followup was conducted with seven general education teachers from two elementary schools in a large urban school district in the southeastern United States. The components of successful professional development programs are discussed and implications for teacher education are offered. 

In this study, the results of five training studies evaluating the effects of a coaching program for use in Dutch primary and secondary schools are described.

This study describes a benefit-cost analysis of a comprehensive mentoring program for beginning teachers conducted in a medium-sized California school district.

Research suggests effective professional learning communities (PLCs) enhance teacher collaboration and student achievement. Some studies indicate that these communities also predict greater collective efficacy, while others suggest teacher efficacy is predictive of teachers working together.

This report synthesizes what research says works in improving teacher skills and knowledge, what nations that outperform the United States in education are doing, and provides an analysis of newly available data from the federal Schools and Staffing Survey and other sources to indicate where the nation stands in building the capacity of educators to help students reach high standards. It includes newly analyzed data from the federal Schools and Staffing Survey and other data sources.

U.S. public policy has increasingly been conceived, debated, and evaluated through the lenses of politics and ideology. The fundamental question -- Will the policy work? -- too often gets short shrift or even ignored. A remedy is an evidence-based policy--a rigorous approach that draws on careful data collection, experimentation, and both quantitative and qualitative analysis to determine what the problem is, which ways it can be addressed, and the probable impacts of each of these ways. 

If teachers are to have a significant impact on student learning it is necessary for them to be well trained and prepared for the role of teacher.  This report examined the effectiveness of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) and My TeachingPartner Pre-K.  The NBPTS is a professional certification program for teachers that have taught at least three years and can meet the NBPTS standards.  My TeachingPartner Pre-K incorporates multiple media and coaching to prepare early education teachers.  The results of the What Works Clearinghouse review of NBPTS is that it had mixed effects in mathematics in grades 3-8 and no discernable effect on English language arts achievement.  There were no studies that met WWC standards for review so no judgment can be made about its effectiveness.  The results of this review highlight the necessity of evaluating the effectiveness of teacher training programs.  The stakes are very high for the students and families being served by teachers and nationally very large amount of money is spent on training teachers.  It would be nice to know which approaches to teacher professional development are effective and which have no beneficial effect.

The report of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Panel on Research and Teacher Education (2005) recommended that teacher educators need to systematically and empirically study their own practice. The premise of the report was that teacher educators need to carry out quality research in order to better inform those inside and outside the field of education.

The purpose of this essay is to describe quality teacher induction that has evolved from “fourth-wave” (1997–2006) teacher induction program development and research. A definition of quality induction is proposed, and a set of induction goals and components are outlined.

 Due to the increased need to support teachers' use of evidence-based practices in multi-tiered systems of support such as RTI [Response to Intervention] and PBIS [Positive Behavior Interventions and Support], coaching can extend and strengthen professional development. This paper describes a multi-level approach to coaching and provides implications for practice and research.

 Due to the increased need to support teachers' use of evidence-based practices in multi-tiered systems of support such as RTI [Response to Intervention] and PBIS [Positive Behavior Interventions and Support], coaching can extend and strengthen professional development. This paper describes a multi-level approach to coaching and provides implications for practice and research.

The purpose of this descriptive study was to examine and document developmental concerns of participants in a paired peer placement peer coaching program. Research participants were 26 elementary education majors who were randomly paired for their first teaching experience. Data were collected from students' observations, feedback from each other, and participants' reflections on their teaching experiences. 

The purpose of this study is to examine research to answer the question, What is the impact of teacher professional development on student achievement.

The National Council on Teacher Quality works to achieve fundamental changes in the policy and practices of teacher preparation programs, school districts, state governments, and teachers unions.

This section of the Edutopia website provides new teachers with resources for becoming an effective classroom teacher.

How to Survive Your First Year Teaching

Do’s and don’ts, resources, and expert advice on how to navigate challenges as a new teacher and make the successful transition from college to classroom.