This paper is a commentary on the special issue on teacher research.

An evaluation of a two-year professional development project for mathematics and science teachers in grades 6, 7, and 8 that blended face-to-face workshops with online sessions.

This article describes the collaborative work of three teachers, two Arab and one Jewish, as they taught first grade together in a then new bilingual/bicultural school in Israel.

Croom’s article "Are There Any Questions?" addresses the importance of teachers’ questions, but it contains several flaws. This commentary argues that the synergy resulting from using multiple teacher behaviors in concert is necessary for diagnosing and promoting student understanding.

Drawing on the wisdom of practice of 37 experienced teacher induction leaders and case studies of mentor/new teacher pairs, this study found that mentors can interrupt that tendency among new teachers, focusing them on the learning of individual students, especially those underperforming.

Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data collected over a 5-year period, we argue that in troubled urban school districts, teacher buy-in to curricular reform is best achieved when change agents adapt their program to the daily needs and problems of classroom teachers.

This study examines the policy mechanisms and processes that districts can use to provide high-quality in-service professional development for teachers. The findings are based on a national probability sample of district professional development coordinators.

This article focuses on how a statewide reform initiative, when envisioned as a professional development opportunity, impacted teachers’ capacities to become change agents in their classrooms and districts and how individual district contexts shaped the development of those capacities.

This paper investigates school district officials' theories about teacher learning and change.

The authors use their experience with a professional development project to propose a model of teacher community in the workplace.

The authors challenge the conclusions of the National Commission for Teaching and America’s Future and argue that the research literature offers far less support for the Commission’s recommendations than is claimed.

Using interviews and qualitative methods, this article examines the rhetorical difficulties that candidates experience in applying for National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) certification.

The authors respond to criticism by Linda Darling-Hammond of their previous article that challenges the conclusions of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.

This article uses a five-year retrospective approach to examine the effect involvement with professional development schools (PDSs) has had on the way colleges or universities prepare teachers.

This article is essentially an autobiographical reflection on forty years of teaching. It makes use of various accounts of schooling and teacher education practice, placing against them some of my experience and questions.

This article illustrates how Tao Xingzhi, a former student of John Dewey at Columbia University and a most prominent figure in the modern Chinese history of education, boldly experimented with Dewey’s philosophy in Chinese teacher education.

An examination of teacher reform networks in California and Vermont.

Time for teachers cannot be readily constructed and scheduled by reformers. Teachers need to construct their own time. This article examines different kinds of time for teachers, arguing that much of school reform will fail if it ignores the multiple constructs, boundaries, rhythms, and patterns of time for teachers.

The teacher development project described in this article reveals ways in which the social consequences of poverty and racial marginalization may be crucial to the outcomes of educational reform in inner-city schools. The study demonstrates that educational reform can be affected by the economic, political, and cultural context of which a school is in large part a product. The author addresses the consequences of this educational embeddedness for school reform, and suggests that in order to create good schools in the inner cities, educational reform must be accompanied by other, more fundamental social changes.

Presents narratives on beginning teachers and their experiences. They describe a complex interplay between self-discovery and explorations of individual students and subject matter.

Strategies for enhancing the quality of instruction at the university level

This article focuses on professional practice schools as contexts for the continuing professional development of experienced inservice teachers. A framework for developing a culture of inquiry in a school is provided, appropriate professional growth activities are considered, and problems and dilemmas associated with teacher development in professional practice schools are discussed.

This article examines factors which contribute to the development of professional thinking in the helping professions, including teaching.

This article describes some maxims derived from recent theory in learning and instruction and from reflection on excellent practice, explaining and illustrating them using examples from a successful literacy training program, Reading Recovery.

This article argues that a blend of scientific and personal knowledge is essential for sound professional practice in early childhood education. The need for empathy, subjective understanding, compassion, feeling, and self-knowledge is emphasized and implications for teacher education discussed.

Declaring that "the foundation of a profession is not permission to practice autonomously, it is shared responsibility for collectively shaping standards of professional practice," Linda Darling-Hammond speaks to the differential staffing and professional development school proposals of the Holmes Group. However, her central concern is with the nature of good teaching itself.

First considering the threat of the Holmes Group proposals to teacher educators in undergraduate colleges, Raywid then turns to criticize the differential staffing proposal as a cutting up of what should be a connected set of roles and tasks that all good teachers should be able to perform. She ends with a critical exploration of the idea of sound subject matter preparation for teachers.

This article is an exercise in healthy skepticism. Findings on effective staff development programs, reported with some enthusiasm and confidence, have been subjected to a closer look. The enthusiasm survives; the confidence has been tempered.

The Scarsdale Teachers Institute is an inservice program for faculty run by teachers. This article describes the goverance, collaboration, content, and evaluation of a different type of school improvement.