Professional Development
A teacher's education never ends. New research, state standards, and curriculum changes all require teachers who are informed, energized, and responsive. Learn the characteristics of excellent reading teachers and the knowledge and skills required for teaching reading.
This section contains 16 articles.
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Five Phases of Professional Development
Too often, teachers say that the professional development they receive provides limited application to their everyday world of teaching and learning. Here The North Central Regional Educational Laboratory shares a five-phase framework that can help create comprehensive, ongoing, and — most importantly — meaningful professional development.
Avoiding a Rush to Judgment: Teacher Evaluation and Teacher Quality
Comprehensive methods of evaluating teachers that avoid the typical "drive-by" evaluations can promote improvements in teaching.
Teacher-Student Interactions: The Key to Quality Classrooms
The Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) describes ten dimensions of teaching that are linked to student achievement and social development. Each dimension falls into one of three board categories: emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support.
The Recruitment, Retention, and Development of Quality Teachers in Hard-to-Staff Schools
The development of new teachers in hard-to-staff schools should be of the highest priority for principals, as stability is key to long-term school improvement. Here are some factors principals should remember when recruiting and retaining teachers.
What Keeps Good Teachers in the Classroom? Understanding and Reducing Teacher Turnover
Working conditions play a much larger role than retirement in explaining why teachers transfer leave a class or the profession. This brief looks at the research about teacher turnover, and finds that while teachers' decisions to stay or leave a particular school is contingent on a variety of factors, in all cases the key seems to lie in the level of success teachers encounter in raising their students' academic performances.
Teacher Knowledge Matters in Supporting Young Readers
Knowing what teachers know and how they practice is necessary to ensure that there are professionals in every classroom meeting the diverse needs of students. Researchers evaluated case studies from a group of teachers and revealed four different levels of knowledge, indicating that future staff development needs to be differentiated and individualized.
Building Parent-Teacher Relationships
Effective communication is essential for building school-family partnerships. It constitutes the foundation for all other forms of family involvement in education.
Many school districts have adopted instructional coaching as a model for teachers' professional development. This brief offers guidance on how school leaders can tailor the most promising coaching strategies to the needs of their schools.
Principal as Instructional Leader: Designing a Coaching Program That Fits
Research shows that effective school leaders focus on improving classroom instruction, not just managerial tasks. A natural way for school leaders to take on the role of instructional leader is to serve as a "chief" coach for teachers by designing and supporting strong classroom level instructional coaching. Here's how to selecting a coaching approach that meets the particular needs of a school and how to implement and sustain the effort.
What Science Offers Teachers of Reading
Every child deserves excellent reading teachers because teachers make a difference in children's reading achievement and motivation to read.
Professional Development for Reading
For teachers to help more children learn to read, their own learning must be a valued and integral part of their work. Here are guidelines for the conditions for and content of effective professional development in reading.
The Process of Professional Development
In order to adopt research-based practices for teaching reading, teachers must be supported with quality professional development that helps them develop an extensive knowledge and skills base. This guide, written by Learning First Alliance (an organization of twelve national education associations), calls for changes in the context, process, and content of professional development in reading.
Why Have Teachers Been Left Unprepared to Teach Reading?
Teaching reading is a complex process that draws upon an extensive knowledge base and repertoire of strategies. This article argues that many novice teachers are underprepared to teach reading effectively, and examines some of the reasons why.
Knowledge and Skills for Teaching Reading
The knowledge and skills base required for teaching reading well is extensive. This outline of a proposed curriculum for teacher education programs in reading covers knowledge of reading development, language structure, and strategies for instruction and assessment.
The Need to Change the Way Children Are Taught to Read
Recent research has provided a clearer picture about reading difficulties and how to prevent them. This position paper of the International Dyslexia Association argues for reform in teacher preparation to reflect these research-based understandings.