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Professional
Development References
Ball, D. L., & Cohen, D. K. (1996). Reform by the book: What is - or might Cameron, D. (1996). The role of teachers in establishing a quality- Clark, C., Moss, P. A., Goering, S., Herter, R. J., Lamar, B., Leonard, D., Cochran-Smith, M. (1991). Learning to teach against the grain. Harvard Cochran-Smith, M. (1995). Color blindness and basket making are not the Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (1990). Research on teaching and Darling-Hammond, L. (1996). What matters most: A competent teacher Darling-Hammond, L., & McLaughlin, M. W. (1995). Policies that support Elmore, R. F. (1995). Structural reform and educational practice. Goodlad, J. I. (1996). Sustaining and extending educational renewal. Phi Knapp, M. S., Sheilds, P. M., & Turnbull, B. J. (1995). Academic challenge
in Lewis, A. C. (1995). An overview of the standards movement. Phi Delta Lieberman, A. (1995). Practices that support teacher development: Shulman, L. S. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new Smylie, M. A. (1996). From bureaucratic control to building human Spencer, D. A. (1996). Teachers and educational reform. Educational Sykes, G. (1996). Reform of and as professional development. Phi Delta Wise, A. E. (1996). Building a system of quality assurance for the teaching Wise, A. E., & Leibrand, J. (1996). Profession-based accreditation: A PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ANNOTATIONS
Ball, D. L., & Cohen, D. K. (1996). Reform by the book: What is - or
might be - the role of curriculum materials in teacher learning and instructional
reform. Educational Researcher, 25(9), 6-8. In this article, the authors discuss ways in which curricular materials might
play a greater role in school reform efforts, as well as reasons why they typically
have not done so. They state: "not only are curriculum materials well-positioned
to influence individual teachers’ work but, unlike many other innovations,
textbooks are already “scaled up” and part of the routine of schools.
They have “reach” in the system. At the local level, text adoptions
are the primary routine in most districts for updating the curriculum every
five to seven years...in our fragmented school system, textbooks are also one
way that educators strive for a common curriculum across settings” (p.
6). The authors suggest four primary reasons that curricular materials have
not had as great an impact as they could: Teachers, and their need to learn to be able to use new materials appropriately,
have often been overlooked by curriculum developers and others. Teachers often selectively adapt and implement curricular materials to suit
the needs of their own students. This selection is based on “teachers’
understanding of the material, their beliefs about what is important, and their
ideas about students and the teachers’ role” (p. 6). The idealized image of professional autonomy and of creative teachers as those
who create their own curricular materials, has inhibited careful consideration
of the constructive role that published curriculum might play in education.
There has been little investigation of the relationship between teachers and
textbooks. However, according to these authors, “materials could be designed to place
teachers in the center of curriculum construction and make teachers’ learning
central to efforts to improve education, without requiring heroic assumptions
about each teacher’s capacities as an original designer of curriculum”
(p. 7). Ball and Cohen elaborate on the idea of "curriculum enactment":
the processes through which the actual curriculum is jointly enacted within
particular contexts by teachers, students and curricular materials. Using this
concept, they suggest ways that curricular materials could be developed that
might have a greater influence on improving instruction. They list three ways
that curricular materials could potentially contribute more to educational reform
initiatives, which they term: 1) crossing boundaries, 2) improved
instruction, and 3) partners in practice. By “crossing boundaries”, the authors mean the needed shift in focus
from clear boundaries between the presentation of content in texts and the teachers’
teaching, to the work of enacting curriculum. They feel that teachers’
guides could be much better developed to help teachers learn about their students,
teaching, and the content area. Guides could offer examples of a range of student
work, discuss different ways to represent ideas and connections between them,
and help teachers think about when, over the course of the year, units could
be presented. Ball and Cohen state that “when the gap between materials
and teaching is very wide - leaving each practitioner to figure out how to deal
with students’ thinking, how to probe the content at hand, and how to map
instruction against the temporal rhythms of classroom life - teachers must invent
or ignore a great deal. If they do try to invent and thus learn, they must often
learn alone, with few resources to assist them” (p. 7). By “improved instruction,” the authors mean that greater attention
to the needs of professional development accompanying adoption of new curricular
materials needs to be paid. However, they caution against support that is geared
toward quality and consistent implementation of materials. They suggest instead
that this be offered as a resource that encourages “teachers’ investigation
of and work with the material” (p. 8). By “partners in practice,” Ball and Cohen draw attention to the need
for textbook developers and publishers, schools and teachers to all make an
investment in the changes suggested. For curricular materials to become a site
for teacher learning, it will require that written materials be designed to
be educational for both students and teachers and that more research on teachers’
knowledge and learning be conducted. In their conclusion, that authors reiterate that the boundaries between teachers
and texts needs to be reconceived in the construction of curriculum, if these
materials are to play a more significant role in curriculum reform. They close
by stating: “If we want the intended curriculum best to contribute to the
enacted one, we must find ways to design the first with the second clearly in
view. That cannot be done without framing curriculum use and construction as
activities that draw on teachers’ understanding and students’ thinking,
and that depend on engaging ways to represent the material and develop the intellectual
environment of a class” (p. 8). Cameron, D. (1996). The role of teachers in establishing a quality-assurance
system. Phi Delta Kappan, 78(3), 225-227. The author of this article is the executive director of the National Education
Association. He provides a historical perspective to examine the roles schools,
teachers and administrators have played over the years and to present a new
look at school reform. He begins by stating that while our world has changed,
from the Industrial Age to the Information Age, our schools have not. During
the earlier part of this century, mass-production manufacturing dominated our
economy and schools reflected the processes and culture of this industry. The
rigid curriculum and emphasis on standardization and rote responses prepared
students for a stable, standardized economy. However, as our economy has come
to be dominated not by production, but by information, institutional structures
have also changed. A controlling, prescriptive organization has been replaced
by more democratic, decentralized structures. Cameron claims that "the
new emphasis is on teamwork and shared decision making" (p. 226). He also
sees changes in America's educational institutions, with much greater diversity
in the student population requiring schools to define a new philosophy where
schools adapt to the needs of students, rather than forcing students to adapt
to the needs of schools. However, the organization of schools remains hierarchical,
with a top-down standardization proceeding from the state level, to the district,
and the individual school. The individual classroom remains the bottom level,
with teaching still practiced as an isolated profession. The author states that
"ours remains a hierarchical system in which decisions directly affecting
classrooms are instituted most often by those who never see teachers, students,
or parents" (p. 226). Given the changes in our culture and student population, Cameron argues that
that "we need to make the transition from a prescriptive system to a supportive
one" (p. 226) and he suggests that we follow the example of businesses
who have flattened the organizational hierarchy and decentralized responsibility
and accountability. However, along with these institutional changes, he recognizes
that there needs to be accompanying changes in teacher education and professional
development. While in the past, there was the assumption that once a teacher
was licensed, their professional development was complete, this assumption is
no longer tenable. He states that "in the 21st century, quality assurance
means creating a new system that encourages teachers to pursue the lifelong
goal of perfecting their craft" (p. 227). To support this goal, the NEA
offers three guiding principles: 1) that the professional development of teachers
must be redefined, 2) that increased direct responsibility for the quality of
student achievement must be placed in the hands of teachers, and 3) that there
must be a greater responsibility for the quality of the teaching force assumed
by teachers and teacher organizations. The NEA feels that "'improved teacher preparation and development are
the keys to increased student achievement" (p. 227). It supports the efforts
of and collaborates with organizations such as the National Council for Accreditation
of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the National Board for Professional Teaching
Standards (NBPTS). Unlike traditional labor union practices, the NEA has come
to develop a model of labor relations that encourages teachers to become responsible
for the continued professional development of their peers. Cameron discusses
a model program in Seattle, the Staff Training, Assistance, and Review (STAR)
program, in which a group of consulting teachers work as peer coaches and mentors
to others who are experiencing difficulties in their classrooms. This program
was collaboratively designed by the local NEA union and school administrators
as a way of providing access to ongoing professional development to teachers
at all levels, beginning teachers and veterans. The success of this program
supports Cameron's claims that reform efforts require 1) that teachers "take
greater responsibility for the quality of the work of their peers" (p.
227) and 2) that we develop a supportive, rather than prescriptive organizational
model that fosters ongoing professional development through mentoring, resources,
and flexibility. Clark, C., Moss, P. A., Goering, S., Herter, R. J., Lamar, B., Leonard,
D., Robbins, S., Russell, M., Templin, M., & Wascha, K. (1996). Collaboration
as dialogue: Teachers and researchers engaged in conversation and professional
development. American Educational Research Journal, 33(1), 193-231.
The central theme of this article is redefining collaboration in educational
research. It takes the form of a Readers Theatre, with much of the body of the
work presented via excerpts of dialogue taken from meetings and written reflections.
The 10 participants involved in the research project discussed in this article
formed three collaborative groups of teachers and university researchers, who
were all interested in exploring the use of portfolio assessment in science
and English classrooms. There were three research sites, Flint, Michigan, Toledo,
Ohio, and Detroit, Michigan. Five of the participants met bi-weekly at the University
of Michigan, while the other participants met frequently in their smaller groups
and twice in the whole group. In this article, the authors share their evolving concept of "collaborative
research" and the possibilities they believe this type of research holds
for professional development. A literature review of collaborative research
and professional development is presented, with the recognition that little
consensus exists about what it means to do collaborative research. The authors
develop their own definition that is twofold: 1) collaborative research involves
"mutual professional development and change on the parts of both teachers
and researchers" (p. 196) and 2) dialogue, rather than a joint responsibility
for research work, is the central, shared feature of collaborative research.
This article is based on a Readers Theatre presentation at the 1993 AERA conference.
The authors discussed some of the difficulties, both material and institutional,
encountered when attempting to publish this type of dialogic oral production.
They discussed the different burdens of publication for researchers, for whom
publication is a necessity for continued employment, and teachers, for whom
publication may not provide any tangible rewards. Additionally, the referred
journal format tends to disallow dialogue text and traditionally does not include
teachers as authors or equal contributors. This format also typically requires
a cohesive theoretical frame, which the authors found problematic given the
diversity of the research participants. The guiding vision of collaboration
as a coming to joint understanding of each others' work was not consistent with
the imposition of a joint theoretical perspective on all participants. The analysis was presented via excerpts of participants' discourse, within
five structural themes: 1) entry, 2) the nature of collaboration, 3) relationships
with students, 4) dissemination, and 5) learning. A consistent finding across
all five themes was the variability of experiences. In terms of entry, each
of the projects were initiated differently and with variation in focus, direction
and number of participants. This variation as also seen with the nature of the
collaboration, which ranged from researchers as co-teachers to researchers as
observers. The least variability was seen within the theme of relationships
with students, where there was some consensus by the participants as to the
powerful and positive impact of collaborative research upon their students,
who appeared to see how their learning within the classroom connected to that
beyond the classroom. The teachers also highlighted the isolation they felt
working with students. Within the theme of dissemination, there was a great
deal of variability of the participants' perceptions about what exactly this
meant. To some, dissemination took place primarily through conference presentations
and journal articles. Others saw 'dissemination' as a more vague descriptor,
that served again to emphasize collaboration as defined in the article, as shared
understandings and learning. In terms of the last theme, learning through collaboration,
exactly what the participants learned varied greatly, from perceptions of roles,
to resistance to change and what that change entails. The article concluded
with the finding that a reconceptualization of roles needs to take place if
both teacher and researcher needs are to be met and that dialogue is a powerful
tool for achieving parity in collaboration. Cochran-Smith, M. (1991). Learning to teach against the grain. Harvard
Educational Review, 61(3), 279-310. In this article, the author discusses different approaches to student teaching
experiences which may lead new teachers to work to reform teaching, what Cochran-Smith
terms "teaching against the grain." She states that “prospective
teachers need to know from the start that they are part of a larger struggle
and that they have a responsibility to reform, not just replicate, standard
school practices...Teaching against the grain stems from, but also generates,
critical perspectives on the macro-level relationships of power, labor, and
ideology” (p. 280). While the university is a good place to study such
relationships in abstract, Cochran-Smith contends that to understand how these
play out in individual schools and with particular teachers, “these relationships
can only be explored in schools in the company of experienced teachers who are
themselves engaged in complex, situation-specific, and sometimes losing struggles
to work against the grain” (p. 280). The author contrasts two approaches which are designed to foster critical inquiry
in student teachers and prepare them to become reformers: "critical dissonance,"
which is the more common of the two approaches, but problematic from the author's
perspective; and "collaborative resonance," which is discussed in
greatest length in this article. Cochran-Smith discusses the differences between
these two approaches as arising from “different underlying assumptions
about knowledge, power, and language in teaching, and the ways these are played
out in school-university relationships” (p. 280). She defines critical
dissonance as “incongruity based on a critical perspective, between
what students learn about teaching and schooling at the university and what
they already know and continue to know about them in the schools...The goal
of these programs is to interrupt the potentially conservative influences of
student teachers’ school-based experiences and instead to help them develop
stronger, more critical perspectives that confront issues of race, class, power,
labor, and gender, and to call into question the implications of standard school
policy and practice” (p. 281). However, these type of programs are not
very successful. Cochran-Smith finds this to be so because of the embedded message
these programs carry - that it is those outside of schools who have the critical
perspective to liberalize and reform both the people and activities inside schools.
This dichotomy is troubling and “may in reality “set-up” school-based
teachers to be exposed and criticized in university-led courses, and may inadvertently
convey the message that teacher’s lived experiences are unenlightened and
even unimportant” (p. 282). In contrast, the collaborative resonance approach seeks to provide prospective
teachers with the resources they will need to teach against the grain by “creating
or tapping into contexts that support ongoing learning by student teachers in
the company of experienced teachers who are themselves actively engaged in efforts
to reform, research, or transform teaching” (p. 283). This approach seeks
to link what students learn at the university with what they learn at their
school site. In most preservice teacher education programs, “the role of
the teacher as an agent for change is not emphasized, and students are not deliberately
socialized into assuming responsibility for school reform and renewal”
(p. 285). Collaborative resonance teacher education programs explicitly seek
to do so. Project START, a fifth year, preservice elementary education program at the
University of Pennsylvania was used to exemplify the collaborative resonance
approach. Cochran-Smith states that “in Project START, all participants
(students, as well as cooperating teachers, university supervisors, and course
instructors) are encouraged to view themselves as researchers, reformers, and
reflective professionals responsible for critiquing and creating curriculum,
instruction, forms of assessment, and the institutional arrangements of schooling”
(p. 286). Additionally, structural aspects of this program contribute to the
collaborative relationships between participants. Student teachers are grouped
into cohorts that take classes and participate in study and teacher research
groups together over a twelve month period. These cohorts meet monthly for a
seminar on learning, teaching and learning to teach. They are also grouped into
sub-cohorts of three or four student teachers at each school site. Each site
is specifically chosen for the presence of cooperating teachers who are identified
as working against the grain. At each school site, cooperating teachers, student
teachers and the university supervisor meet weekly to reflect on their work
in a teacher researcher group. A bi-weekly teacher-educator-as-researcher meeting
is held with university supervisors and program organizers. Additionally, these
individuals meet twice a year with the cooperating teachers to assess and revise
the program. Using examples from several different school sites, Cochran-Smith discusses
four types of “intellectual work” that constitute teaching against
the grain. By intellectual work, the author refers to “the patterns of
thinking, talking, and knowing about teaching that are characteristic of teachers
engaged in the enterprise of reform” (p. 287-8). These include: rethinking
the language of teaching, posing problems of practice, constructing curriculum,
and confronting dilemmas of teaching. At Community Central Lower School, the
participants engaged in rethinking the language of teaching, as they
were encouraged to question assumptions and ask questions of themselves and
others. This is defined as “a collaborative process of uncovering the values
and assumptions implicit in language and then thinking through the nature of
the relationship it legitimates” (p. 289). For example, the meaning of
“transition children,” a label applied to some students who have completed
kindergarten but are not judged ready for first grade, was discussed in the
teacher-researcher group. This issue was discussed as problematic and teachers
as appropriate agents to raise such questions, interrogate their own knowledge
and experiences, and begin to take responsible and reasoned action. At Charles
A. Beard School, participants engaged in posing problems of practice,
a process through which the cooperating teachers assisted the student teachers
in framing and reframing questions about individual students. “Their conversations
with student teachers over a year clearly indicate that they were certain both
that teaching was primarily an activity of intellectual problem setting and
that the best sources of information about how to set problems were the children
themselves” (p. 293). The participants at Edgeview Elementary School were
active in constructing curriculum, defined as raising questions about
planning, teaching and understanding curriculum. According to the author, constructing
curriculum “is more than deciding how to teach the material predetermined
in the teacher’s guide or a pupil’s text. It requires that teachers
consider the long-range consequences of what and why they teach, as well as
the daily decisions about how they teach it” (p. 294). At Stephen R. Morris
Elementary, the teacher-researcher group was active in confronting the dilemmas
of teaching, which is “a process of identifying and wrestling with
educational issues that are characterized by equally strong but incompatible
claims for justice” (p. 297). For example, at one meeting, participants
discussed their views on the consequences of segregated schooling, based on
gender and race. While both positive and negative consequences could be identified,
there was no clear answer to this dilemma within the current structure of schools
and our society. Unlike problems, which are defined as situations which may
be complex and difficult, but not unapproachable, dilemmas are defined as “a
situation of teaching that presents two or more logical alternatives, the loss
of either of which is equally unacceptable and disagreeable. A dilemma
poses two or more competing claims to justice, fairness, and morality”
(p. 299). While producing no solutions to the dilemmas discussed, confronting
dilemmas of teaching does identify that there is a moral, in addition to a knowledge,
base to teaching, which student teachers must confront to assert their responsibility
as teachers. Although student teachers did not consistently participate to the same extent
as cooperating teachers and supervisors, Cochran-Smith finds that both empirical
and anecdotal evidence from this project demonstrate the impact of their observations
and ongoing conversations with cooperating teachers actively engaged in school
reform. She provides the example of one student teacher, Maggie, whose experiences
demonstrated the possible reality of alternative ways of teaching. The impact
of her student teaching experience was evident from interviews and written essays,
even throughout her first year teaching at another school. Cochran-Smith concludes by stating that while it is uncommon and difficult
to sustain deep intellectual discussions during the student teaching experience,
it is both essential and possible. She cites both the alternative roles adopted
by the participants and the supportive structures as crucial for establishing
and maintaining the discourse. She reiterates that “it is critical that
student teachers have opportunities to talk and work with teachers who are actively
engaged in school reform from inside schools. Braided into the social and intellectual
relationships of student teachers and experienced reforming teachers is exploration
of alternative ways to think about and talk about teaching, ways not normally
seen by teachers and administrators who work with the grain but also
not normally seen by university-based teachers and researchers who work outside
of schools”(p. 306). Cochran-Smith, M. (1995). Color blindness and basket making are not the
answers: Confronting the dilemmas of race, culture, and language diversity in
teacher education. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 493-522.
This article deals with the complex dilemmas of assisting student teachers
to confront issues of cultural and linguistic differences in the classroom.
She states that “the system needs teachers who regard teaching as a political
activity and embrace social change as part of their job...what we need in teacher
education is not better generic strategies for “teaching multicultural
education” or “teaching for diversity” nor more lessons about
basket making or other customs in non-Anglo cultures. Instead, I propose that
what we need are generative ways for prospective teachers, experienced teachers,
and teacher educators alike to work together in communities of learners - to
explore and reconsider their own assumptions, understand the values and practices
of families and cultures that are different from their own, and construct pedagogy
that takes these into account in locally appropriate and culturally sensitive
ways” (p. 494-5). In this article, the predominate paradigm of lesson planning and basal scripts
is contrasted with a teacher-research-centered approach which the author uses
with student teachers involved in Project START, a preservice teacher education
project at the University of Pennsylvania. Cochran-Smith argues that while lesson
planning is the one form of planning that is explicitly taught in teacher education
programs, it actually plays a modest or even insignificant role among the wide
variety of planning strategies that experienced educators use. This practice
is troubling, even more so because of the hidden messages that the teaching
of lesson plans perpetuates, than for the mismatch between what is taught in
teacher education programs and the typical practices of teaching in schools.
According to the author, “typical lesson plan assignments imply both that
planning for teaching and teaching itself are linear activities that proceed
from a preplanned opening move to a known and predetermined endpoint. They suggest
that knowledge, curriculum, and instruction are static and unchanging, transmitted
through a one-way conduit from teacher to students, rather than socially constructed
through the transactions of teachers, children, and texts” (p. 496). Cochran-Smith
finds basal reading programs, which provide carefully scripted lesson plans,
equally troubling. She finds that “because both the content and sequence
of events are established at the onset of a lesson plan and, more often than
not, provided for in the prepackaged materials, the major task for the prospective
teacher is not to learn to understand the diversity of ways children construct
meanings...Rather, the major task is to develop a repertoire of methods for
getting through lessons with a reasonable amount of decorum” (p. 497).
In contrast, when teacher research is central to the experiences of student
teachers, they are encouraged to develop a more complex perspective of their
classrooms and students, as embedded in the larger contexts of community and
culture, to analyze variations in students’ behavior, and to understand
their work through classroom research. Cochran-Smith presents five perspectives on race, culture, and language diversity
that she finds essential to student teachers preparing to work in diverse environments
and critically challenge "dysfunctional and inequitable" systems of
schools. These perspectives are: 1) reconsidering personal knowledge and experience,
2) locating teaching within the culture of the school and community, 3) analyzing
children's learning opportunities, 4) understanding children's understanding,
and 5) constructing reconstructionist pedagogy. The author describes several
teacher inquiry projects that can help preservice teachers develop these perspectives.
These activities include: written narratives; group research projects that gather
information about the local school and community; curriculum construction, using
alternative texts and materials that alters both the social participation and
academic task structures of traditional instruction; analysis of classroom data,
including comparison of contrasting lessons; and observation and interview of
individual students. Student teachers can reconsider personal knowledge and experience, through
narrative and reading-based essays and explore “the tacit assumptions we
make about the motivations and behaviors of other children, other parents, and
other teachers and about the pedagogies we deem most appropriate for learners
who are like us or not like us” (p. 500). Student teachers in Project START
locate teaching in the culture of the school and community through group research
projects. Through their research, they learn that “any given instance of
teaching occurs within a particular historical and social moment and is embedded
within nested layers of context, including the social and academic structures
of the classroom; the history and norms of teaching and learning at school;
and the attitudes, values, beliefs, and language uses of the community and its
web of historical, political, and social relationships to the school” (p.
504). Student teachers engage in the analysis of children’s learning opportunities
through active classroom teaching, the construction of curriculum, and classroom
data analysis. This type of research “allows them to analyze the learning
opportunities that are or are not available to children within various academic
tasks and social participation structures, particularly those of scripted and
unscripted programs of instruction” (507-8). For example, a student teacher
may develop a research question regarding some type of instruction, such as
reading, and then compare the results of contrasting lessons. The research can
illustrate how instructional practices, materials and/or participation structures
can influence children’s learning opportunities. Cochran-Smith finds that “central to learning to teach in a culturally
and linguistically diverse society is understanding children’s understanding,
or exploring what it means to know a child, to consider his or her background,
behaviors, and interactions with others, and try to do what Duckworth calls
“give reason” to the ways the child constructs meanings and interpretations,
drawing on experiences and knowledge developed both inside and outside the classroom”
(p. 511). Through interviews, observations, and the collection of multiple data
sources, the student teacher attempts to better understand one child in a particular
classroom. The perspective gathered from this type of teacher research can lead
the student teacher to understand that the ways that they respond to cultural
and linguistic diversity are not only influenced by the nested contexts of the
students’ family, community and institution, but also by “their own
preconceptions, experiences, and assumptions about learning and teaching”
(p. 512). The final perspective that Cochran-Smith finds essential for student
teachers to develop is to construct reconstructionist pedagogy, which is defined
as “pedagogy intended to help children understand and then prepare to take
action against the social and institutional inequities that are embedded in
our society” (p. 514). Student teachers do this by forming study groups
with students centering on a variety of topics, including literature, language
use, and urban poverty. The article closes with a discussion of some of the dilemmas inherent in choosing
a transformative stance toward preservice teacher education and the assertion
that it is only in conjunction with experienced teachers and teacher educators
who are struggling “to move beyond color blindness and basket making”
(p. 520) that student teachers can develop these perspectives. In a teacher-research-centered
approach to student teaching, prospective educators can find themselves caught
in a bind between what their university and their cooperating teacher advocate
and between the practices expected by new employers and the ways of critiquing
current practices and challenging assumptions that they have learned during
their student teaching experience. Teacher educators can also be caught in a
bind of what to emphasize and help their students learn. Cochran-Smith suggests
therefore, a dual agenda. She states that “teacher educators can perhaps
best handle the tension between the lesson plan stance and a transformative,
inquiring stance on teaching by arming their student teachers with thorough
knowledge of current practice as well as the ability to construct and act on
a trenchant critique of that practice” (p. 521). They also need to help
student teachers learn to find and work in collaborative learning communities
and networks. Cochran-Smith ends this provocative and influential article by
relating the ways in which she has come to change in her perspectives on teacher
education: “I have come to see that embedded in our pedagogy - not simply
what we say to student teachers about the kinds of teachers they should become
but also what we show them about the “norm” or the taken-for-granted
point of view is - is a powerful subtext about teaching and about the boundaries
of race and teaching in schools and larger educational systems” (p. 522).
Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (1990). Research on teaching and teacher
research: The issues that divide. Educational Researcher, 19(2), 2-11.
This article discusses the lack of practicing teachers' input in the generation
of knowledge about teaching. The authors state that “those who have daily
access, extensive expertise, and a clear stake in improving classroom practice
have no formal way to make their knowledge of classroom teaching and learning
part of the literature on teaching” (p. 2). They discuss the paradigms
that have dominated research on teaching: process-product and interpretive research.
Process-product studies account for the majority of research on teaching and
has been linked with the view of teachers as technicians. Cochran-Smith and
Lytle state that this type of research attempts to correlate particular processes
(teacher behaviors) with specific products. These products are typically
defined as student achievement which is measured by standardized assessments.
“Underlying this research is a view of teaching as a primarily linear activity
wherein teacher behaviors are considered “causes” and student learning
is regarded as “effects” (p. 2). In contrast, interpretive research
“presumes that teaching is a highly complex, context-specific, interactive
activity in which differences across classrooms, schools and communities are
critically important” (p. 3). Cochran-Smith and Lytle discuss one final type of educational research, which
they term “teacher research.” They define teacher research as “systematic
and intentional inquiry carried out by teachers” (p. 3) and propose
that it “makes accessible some of the expertise of teachers and provides
both university and school communities with unique perspectives on teaching
and learning” (p. 2). However, they suggest that comparisons of teacher
research with university-based research, rather than being seen as separate
genres, facilitates the exclusion of teachers’ voices from research on
teaching. They discuss two issues they have identified as primary in this exclusion,
institutionalization and standards for methodological rigor. Institutionalization
refers to both ownership and content of research, as well as supportive structures
for teacher research initiatives. The authors discuss some of the means through
which practicing educators are actively involved in setting their own research
agenda and carrying out the studies. They state that “most of those engaged
in teacher researcher are K-12 classroom teachers or student teachers who have
participated in some institute, in-service training, or graduate training based
at a university where they have been exposed to particular ideas about teaching
and learning. They do teacher research as dissertations, graduate coursework
projects, as part of their work as cooperating teachers or student teachers,
or as ongoing work in teacher collaborative projects” (p. 5). Much of this
research has focused on children’s writing, although other research focuses
on issues such as school organization, policy, and multicultural education.
In terms of support structures, Cochran-Smith and Lytle discuss the recent efforts
of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the U.S. Department
of Education’s Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), which
have started providing direct funding for teacher research. They differ in that
OERI funds research that focuses on issues that are important to local school
improvement, while NCTE funds efforts directed at resolving concerns directly
related to the work of the teacher-researcher. A concern that the authors raise
about research efforts like OERI’s is that “in order for these initiatives
to make a difference, those in positions of power in school districts would
need to believe in and act on the following assumptions: (a) that the questions
teachers ask about theory and practice ought to be the starting points for classroom
inquiry; (b) that teachers can and should play a central role in the creation
of new knowledge about teaching and learning, (c) that the benefits of this
new knowledge would outweigh the problems inherent in altering school routines
and practices; and (d) that power in decision making can and ought to be distributed
among teachers, specialists, and administrators across the school system”
(p. 5). They further state that the problem of support for teacher researchers
is a complex one, with far fewer structures to support their work than is found
in the academic research community. In terms of standards of methodological rigor, Cochran-Smith and Lytle discuss
the issues of the research questions posed in teacher research, generalizability,
theoretical frameworks, and documentation and analysis. They state that many
of the research questions posed by teacher researchers arise from discrepancies
between what is intended and what actually occurs, and that “although these
questions are not framed in the language of educational theory, they are indeed
about discrepancies between theory and practice” (p. 6). They continue
that “the unique feature of the questions that prompt teacher research
is that they emanate solely neither from theory nor from practice, but from
critical reflection on the intersection of the two” (p. 6). Claims that the results of teacher research has little generalizability are
similar to claims made about interpretive research carried out in individual
classrooms. However, the authors claim that the research community is coming
to realize that the formulation of general rules about teaching and learning,
without consideration of the context, is not the most useful way of understanding
educational phenomena. They state that interpretive researchers argue that “understanding
one classroom helps us better understand all classrooms. Teachers are uniquely
situated to conduct such inquiries: They have opportunities to observe learners
over long periods of time in a variety of academic and social situations; they
often have many years of knowledge about the culture of the community, school
and classroom; and they experience the ongoing events of classroom life in relation
to their particular roles and responsibilities” (p. 6). The way in which teacher research is grounded in theory is also an issue that
generates disagreement. However, some researchers have come to argue that professional
knowledge, that which allows individuals “to perceive relevant features
of complex, problematic and changeable situations and make appropriate choices”
(p. 7), is actually a form of theoretical knowledge, which has been termed “theories
of action.” A review of the literature suggests that researchers are coming
to view teachers’ knowledge as complex and rich, regardless of how they
describe it - whether as theoretical or not. Cochran-Smith and Lytle suggest
that “it may be that the notion of theory as a combination of perspectives
will be particularly compatible with, and productive for, the emerging genre
of teacher research” (p. 7). When discussing documentation and analysis, the authors find that the array
of data collected in teacher research resembles that gathered by interpretive
researchers, who make use of items such as field notes, interviews, classroom
documents, and video and audio tapes. However, classroom teachers do have unique
demands on their time, which may impinge on their ability to systematically
collect data. Nonetheless, the authors argue that the role of the classroom
teachers offers a unique emic perspective to data analysis that may help offset
discrepancies in data collection. Finally, specific purposes for and contributions of teacher research are identified,
both for the teaching and the academic communities. They present the following
six benefits for teachers, derived from the work of Goswami and Stillman (1987):
“Their teaching is transformed in important ways: they become theorists,
articulating their intentions, testing their assumptions, and finding connections
with practice. Their perceptions of themselves as writers and teachers are transformed. They
step up their use of resources; they form networks; and they become more active
professionally. They become rich resources who can provide the profession with information
it simply doesn’t have. They can observe closely, over long periods of
time, with special insights and knowledge. Teachers know their classrooms and
students in ways that outsiders can’t. They become critical, responsive readers and users of critical research, less
apt to accept uncritically others’ theories, less vulnerable to fads, and
more authoritative in their assessment of curricula, methods, and materials.
They can study writing and learning and report their findings without spending
large sums of money (although they must have support and recognition). Their
studies, while probably not definitive, taken together should help us develop
and assess writing curricula in ways that are outside the scope of specialists
and external evaluators. They collaborate with their students to answer questions important to both,
drawing on community resources in new and unexpected ways. The nature of classroom
discourse changes when inquiry begins. Working with teachers to answer real
questions provides students with intrinsic motivation for talking, reading,
and writing and has the potential for helping them achieve mature language skills”
(p. 8). The authors identified the following four ways that the academic community
can benefit from teacher research: “teachers’ journals provide rich data about classroom life, which
can be used by academics to construct and reconstruct theories of teaching and
learning” (p. 8); “because teacher research emanates from teachers’ own questions and
frameworks, it reveals what teachers regard as the seminal issues about learning
and the cultures of teaching” (p. 8); teacher research provides rich classroom cases, that Shulman has argued need
to form the basis for knowledge about teaching; and teacher research can alter what is known about teaching, not just add to it,
by contributing “to the critique and revision of existing theories by describing
discrepant or paradigmatic cases” and by providing “data that ground
or move toward alternative theories” (p. 8). The authors raise the concern that although teacher research has the potential
to prompt reflection on many of our assumptions about learning, teaching and
children, alternative arrangements will have to become more available to support
this type of research. Suggestions include financial support, channels for dissemination
of research, reduced teaching loads, release time, overtime, and opportunities
for collaboration, such as study groups or research teams. They close by suggesting that "To encourage teacher research, we must
first address incentives for teachers, the creation and maintenance of support
networks, the reform of rigid organizational patterns in schools, and the hierarchical
power relationships that characterize most of schooling. Likewise to resolve
the problematic relationship between academic research and teacher research
it will be necessary to confront controversial issues of voice, power, ownership,
status, and role in the broad educational community. We are not arguing that
teacher research ought to occupy a privileged position in relation to research
on teaching. Rather, we are suggesting that an exploration of the issues that
divide research on teaching and teacher research may help raise critical questions
about the nature of knowledge for teaching and hence enhance research in both
communities" (p. 10). Darling-Hammond, L. (1996). What matters most: A competent teacher for every
child. Phi Delta Kappan, 78(3), 193-200. The focus of this paper is reform of teacher development (preservice and inservice)
as a foundation for elementary and secondary school reform. The article presents
a brief summary of the report "What Matters Most: Teaching for America's
Future" prepared by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future,
of which the author is the executive director. The report criticizes the comparatively
low percentage of education dollars, in contrast to other nations, spent on
teacher salaries. It suggests that for schools and school systems to support
teachers, they must have the following three characteristics: a focus on high
standards for students, an organization that provides a high-quality and coherent
curriculum across grade levels, and support for teachers' collective work and
learning. The problem facing schools today is cast not as a decline of schools'
quality, but rather an increasing challenge brought about by increasing student
poverty and student diversity and the rising need to prepare all students at
a high level of skill and competence. Darling-Hammond criticizes the inconsistent
training that teachers receive across states and training institutions and the
low licensing criteria for entering teachers. She provides a number of statistics
to support her claim that a high percentage of teachers, especially in low income
schools and low-track classes, are ill-prepared to teach either in general education
or in their specialty fields. She states that "more than 12% of new hires
enter classrooms without any formal training at all, and another 14% arrive
without fully meeting state standards" (p. 194). Additionally, the percentage
of well-qualified new teachers, which she defines as those entering with a college
major or minor and a teaching license or credential in their fields, has declined.
She also provides the following statistics: “In recent years, more than 50,000 people who lack the training for their
jobs have entered teaching annually on emergency or substandard licenses. Nearly one-fourth (23%) of all secondary teachers do not even have a minor
in their main teaching field. This is true for more than 30% of mathematics
teachers. Among teachers who teach a second subject, 36% are unlicensed in that field,
and 50% lack a minor in it. Fifty-six percent of high school students taking physical science are taught
by out-of-field teachers, as are 27% of those taking mathematics and 21% of
those taking English. The proportions are much greater in high-poverty schools
and lower-track classes. In schools with the highest minority enrollments, students have less than a
50% chance of getting a science or mathematics teacher who holds a license and
a degree in the field in which he or she teaches.” (p. 195). Five major problems are identified in the process of recruiting, preparing
and developing educators for our schools: 1) inadequate teacher education, 2)
poor recruitment practices, 3) haphazard hiring and teacher induction practices,
4) a lack of professional development opportunities and regard for knowledge
and skills of experienced teachers, and 5) school structures that virtually
guarantee student and teacher failure. The commission developed six goals for
implementation by the year 2006. They are as follows: "All children will be taught by teachers who have the knowledge, skills,
and commitment to teach children well. All teacher education programs will meet professional standards or they will
be closed. All teachers will have access to high-quality professional development, and
they will have regularly scheduled time for collegial work and planning. Both teachers and principals will be hired and retained based on their ability
to meet professional standards of practice. Teachers' salaries will be based on their knowledge and skills. High-quality teaching will be the central investment of schools. Most education
dollars will be spent on classroom teaching." (p. 196) To meet these goals, the commission provided a series of systemic recommendations,
including a new infrastructure for professional learning and a system for accountability
that will guarantee an attention to standards for both students and teachers
at national, state, school and classroom levels. To ensure that only those teachers
who are qualified to teach will do so, they proposed the following specific
recommendations: 1) a serious commitment to standards development and implementation
for both students and educators; 2) a redesign of initial teacher preparation
and continuing teacher professional development, including new teacher induction
practices, such as mentorship; 3) changes in teacher recruitment practices and
the placement of qualified teachers in every classroom; 4) encouragement of
and reward for knowledge and skills, including ability to appropriately address
difficult learning problems; and 5) the creation of schools organized for student
and teacher success, through reallocation of resources, challenge grants linked
to school improvement, and selection, preparation and retention of effective
principals. This article closes with a vignette of a new teacher experiencing
the kind of positive reforms described previously in this article. Darling-Hammond, L., & McLaughlin, M. W. (1995). Policies that support
professional development in an era of reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 76(8),
597-604. This article focuses on teachers' professional development as a vehicle for
school reform. The authors posit that the success of reform efforts depends
on the extent to which teachers can learn new skills and perspectives and unlearn
traditional beliefs and practices. They define professional development as "providing
occasions for teachers to reflect critically on their practice and to fashion
new knowledge and beliefs about content, pedagogy, and learners" (p. 597).
They identify six key characteristics: 1) teacher engagement in concrete tasks,
accompanied by reflection; 2) a grounding in participant-driven inquiry, reflection,
and experimentation; 3) collaboration and focus on teachers' community of practice,
rather than individual teachers; 4) a connection to and basis in teachers' work
with students; 5) a connection to other aspects of school change; and 6) characterized
as "sustained, ongoing, intensive, and supported by modeling, coaching,
and the collective solving of specific problems of practice" (p. 598).
The authors state that to support this type of professional development, a corresponding
shift in policies to ones that build capacity, rather than control or direct
teachers' work, is needed. Therefore, schools need to undertake an assessment
of existing policies to determine to what extent they are compatible with new
perspectives on teachers' learning as life-long, inquiry-based, collaborative,
constructivist, and collegial. This assessment can investigate new institutional
structures and arrangements, ways in which existing structures can be modified
to support professional development, and ways in which the larger educational
context can foster or hinder this development. In terms of new institutional structures for preservice teacher preparation,
the authors discussed Professional Development Schools (PDSs), as a growing
response to this need. PDSs are collaborative arrangements between teacher education
programs and educational settings connected with major school reform networks,
such as the Comer School Development Program and the Coalition of Essential
Schools. In these types of settings, beginning teachers work with experienced
teachers, who then assume a variety of new roles, such as mentors, university
adjuncts, and teacher leaders, which contributes to their ongoing professional
development. In terms of inservice teacher development, the authors discussed
the need to provide a range of professional development opportunities which
allow teachers to participate actively in ongoing collaborative experiences
and reflect on both the process and content of the learning experience. Outside
of the school context, there are a variety of opportunities for professional
development, including school and university collaborations, teacher-to-teacher
and school-to-school networks, partnerships with neighborhood youth organizations,
and teacher involvement in district, regional, or national activities. The criteria
for these extra-school structures is that they be flexible, dynamic, and responsive
to the needs of teachers. Policies that support these activities must have three
critical components: 1) they must create significant professional roles for
educators in multiple areas of practice, 2) funding must support the infrastructure
that enables teacher participation and learning, and 3) they must focus on nurturing
high-quality teacher learning communities, rather than on specific institutional
structures. The authors argue that many in-school opportunities already exist
for professional development, however, the focus must shift to fostering critical
inquiry into teaching practices and student outcomes and to building learning
communities within the school. However, organizational structures, such as schedules,
staffing patterns, and grouping arrangements may need to be redesigned to foster
collaboration and professional development. Including other staff members, such
as administrators, in professional development activities is important as a
means of developing reflective communities of practice and a shared understanding
of goals and new approaches. Finally, the authors discussed the policy context of the larger educational
setting as it impacts on the professional development aspects of school reform.
Their key point is that policies that support professional development must
foster 1) "a learner-centered view of teaching" and 2) "a career-long
conception of teachers' learning" (p. 601). They discussed policy in terms
of curriculum, both at the levels of curriculum in the classroom and curriculum
for teacher education institutions, teacher evaluation, and school leadership.
Changes in all of these arenas will be required for reform implementation. The
authors suggested a series of eight questions that can be asked of existing
policies to determine to what extent they are supportive of teacher learning.
These questions include the role of collaboration, the flexibility of teacher
education opportunities, the school environment as it impacts the ability of
all school personnel to participate in reform, whether institutional restructuring
will be provided to support reforms, and the focus of reform efforts. They are:
“Does the policy reduce the isolation of teachers, or does it perpetuate
the experience of working alone? Does the policy encourage teachers to assume the role of learner, or does it
reward traditional “teacher as expert” approaches to teacher/student
relations? Does the policy provide a rich, diverse menu of opportunities for teachers
to learn, or does it focus primarily on episodic, narrow “training”
activities? Does the policy link professional development opportunities to meaningful content
and change efforts, or does it construct generic inservice occasions? Does the policy establish an environment of professional trust, or does it
exacerbate the risks involved in serious reflection and change and thus encourage
problem hiding? Does the policy provide opportunities for everyone involved with schools to
understand new visions of teaching and learning, or does it focus only on teachers?
Does the policy make possible the restructuring of time, space and scale within
schools, or does it expect new forms of teaching and learning to emerge within
conventional structures? Does the policy focus on learner-centered outcomes that give priority to learning
how and why, or does it emphasize the memorization of facts and the acquisition
of rote skills?" (p. 604). Elmore, R. F. (1995). Structural reform and educational practice. Educational
Researcher, 24(9), 23-26. This brief article critiques traditional, structurally-based school reform
efforts. The author states that while "most school reformers and practitioners
take for granted that changes in structure produce changes in teaching practice,
which in turn produce changes in student learning," (p. 23) research does
not support this simple and direct relationship. He contends that an emphasis
on structural changes as the primary focus of reform is due to several factors.
He provides the following reasons for this continued focus: 1) modifications
in structure have a high symbolic value - they communicate that efforts at reform
are serious, 2) changes in structure are feasible and easier than other options
for change, and 3) these changes resonate with deeply held beliefs people hold
about what is wrong with our schools. The research summarized in this article
suggests that, to the contrary, changes in structure, such as the length of
class periods, produce little real changes in teaching practice, regardless
of teachers' beliefs that they have modified their instruction. One research
finding did appear to produce real changes, "when the values and norms
of the school focused attention on instruction and teachers took responsibility
for student performance, teacher empowerment seemed to lead to significant changes
in pedagogy and changes in pedagogy seemed related to changes in student learning"
(p. 25). Elmore finds that the implication of these findings is that reforms
should first focus on changing knowledge, norms and skills, at the individual
and then organizational levels, before attempting structural changes. This would
require an investment in developing teachers' knowledge and skills and assuming
that structural changes will occur as a result of, rather than as a means of
instigating, instructional changes. Goodlad, J. I. (1996). Sustaining and extending educational renewal. Phi
Delta Kappan, 78(3), 228-234. This article describes the National Network for Educational Renewal (NNER),
which is a flexible structure of collaborative partnerships that focus on both
reform of schools and preservice teacher education institutions. This enterprise
is primarily funded by philanthropies, which the author suggests is important
to long-term and successful reform efforts. This is in contrast to politically-driven
reform efforts, which tend to be short-term and often are employed in opposition
to efforts of the previous political administration. Long-term reform efforts
are better suited than short-term ones to answer profound questions, such as
how to best develop a renewing capacity that serves the public best interest.
The NNER, at the time this article was written, consisted of 16 collaborative
settings in 14 states, which included approximately 450 partner schools, in
excess of 100 school districts, and 34 universities and colleges. These collaborations
all hold in common a formal commitment to implement a set of conditions for
school renewal and teacher education developed by the Center for Educational
Renewal (CER) at the University of Washington. The Institute for Educational
Inquiry (IEI), a nonprofit center assists the settings in putting these conditions
into practice. The development of the NNER brought to the fore front "the necessity of
specifying the educational conditions that are to replace and go beyond those
now in place" (p. 229). The article details the history of this organization
and how membership policies have evolved over time. By 1986, one year after
CER was founded, the NNER had 10 school/university partnerships, which soon
was expanded to 14. At that time, membership was closed. A problem that surfaced
quickly, was what the author has termed the "joining syndrome," in
which some participants came to the meetings and appeared to enjoy the camaraderie
but failed to bring progress reports with them. Additionally, some of the early
partnerships did not express complete acceptance of the agenda articulated by
the NNER or its guiding principles. The overarching intent of the NNER "was
the simultaneous renewal of schooling and the education of educators, through
a symbiotic relationship between schools and universities acting as equal partners"
(p. 230). Some partnerships did not place equal emphasis on renewing schools
and teacher education programs and some collaborations did not have an equal
partnership between the institutions. Given these growing concerns, a study was undertaken that resulted in four
books elaborating a set of principles that are embedded in 19 postulates for
a reconstituted NNER. These postulates specify the conditions hypothesized as
necessary for effective teacher education programs. According to Goodlad, the
conditions "range from the need for institutional commitment and support,
to a faculty configuration embracing members from all parts of the teacher education
curriculum, to a coherent curriculum geared to the mission of schooling and
the role of educators, to ongoing evaluation that includes data regarding graduates,
to supportive state policies" (p. 230). Although there have been some changes
based on feedback, the basic premises of these postulates have not been challenged.
Therefore, in 1989, the NNER asked all partnerships to decide within an 18 month
period whether they wished to continue, given their commitments and new higher
expectations of participants. At this point a re-worked membership application
process was put into play and eight setting were selected to participate with
those continuing from the original group. One criteria for membership was that
all parties understood and accepted that the underlying premises, postulates
and ideas were not negotiable, although their manner of implementation was.
This final point is crucial, due to the complexities of the change process.
But even with such complexities, the author expresses confidence that forming
centers of pedagogy that involve all relevant factors, such as faculty, facilities,
and responsibility for curriculum, is possible and that the proof lies in the
settings already established and which are well on their way to reform. However,
he cautions that for long-term reform efforts to maintain their momentum, guiding
ideas must be built into the infrastructure and that there must be opportunities
for experienced participants to mentor new ones into the process. Another major issue that developed for the NNER over time was how to extend
their initiative beyond the participating settings. They came to realize that
many more were interested in participating and had independently become involved
with the same basic concepts as the NNER. Conference participants at NNER sites
were interested in discussing the mission of teaching and its moral dilemmas.
These topics, as well as the development of the individual and the collective
democratic character were the focus for many conversations, publications and
symposia. It became apparent that other parties were interested in participating
in such conversations. However, concerns over spreading resources too thinly
prompted a search for alternative avenues for expanding the conversation, other
than expanding the NNER or creating a second network. Eisner discusses the importance
of participation in the discussion of ideas in the following manner: "The
concept of "conversation" looms large in our work. In its most common
sense, conversation is central to all human endeavor. The human conversation
shapes the self. A major part of the mission of schooling is to introduce the
young comprehensively to the human conversation" (p. 232). Three avenues
identified for expanding participation in conversations about the educational
conditions embedded in the NNER postulates include: 1) offering the IEI leadership
program to settings already interested in the NNER initiative on a fee-basis,
2) providing technical assistance on a contractual basis to help organize partnerships,
and 3) developing fee-based access to training, conferences, publications, communications
with NNER staff, and technical assistance through some sort of affiliation process
or relationship. The article closes with the reaffirmation that the longevity
of this project stems from the adherence to a set of fundamental principles
and concepts and that a strength of this initiative is in the demonstrated progress
of the participating settings as proof for the validity of the principles. Knapp, M. S., Sheilds, P. M., & Turnbull, B. J. (1995). Academic challenge
in high-poverty classrooms. Phi Delta Kappan, 76(10), 770-776. This article reports the results of a large-scale, systematic study of instructional
practices in schools with high levels of students from low-income families and
above average performance on conventional measures of academic achievement.
The data collected over the two-year period of the study included classroom
observations, teacher and student interviews, curricular materials, teacher
logs, and student assessments. A description of conventional practices was provided
to contrast with the alternative teaching practices, "teaching for meaning,"
under investigation. Traditional approaches were described as providing curricula
that proceeded in a linear fashion, instruction tightly controlled by the teacher,
ability grouping, a focus on keeping students on-task with academic activities,
and remediation of discrete skills for students who fall behind. A third of
the 140 classrooms observed effectively utilized such conventional practices.
Another third consistently emphasized alternatives to traditional practices
in at least one of the three subject areas investigated, mathematics, reading,
and writing. Alternative practices, what the authors refer to as teaching for meaning, in
general had the following characteristics: 1) the instruction assisted students
in perceiving the relationship of parts to the whole, 2) it provided students
with the means with which to construct meaning in their interactions with academic
tasks and the world in which they live, and 3) it made explicit the connections
between subject areas and between what is learned at home and at school. In
mathematics, the principles underlying teaching for meaning involved emphasizing
conceptual knowledge and expansion of topics beyond arithmetic. In reading,
this type of instruction focused on maximizing reading comprehension and integrating
reading instruction into the language arts curriculum. In alternative approaches
to writing instruction, teachers used a variety of instructional strategies
and emphasized extended texts, such as stories, reports and essays, which allowed
students to express themselves in an elaborated form, in contrast to restricted
forms like fill-in-the-blank or short answer activities. An interesting finding of this study is that the instructional practices of
the teachers in one subject area did not reveal much about their practices in
the other areas, such that a teacher who emphasized alternative practices in
math might engage in conventional practices for reading and writing instruction.
While almost three-fifths of the teachers emphasized meaning in at least one
subject area, only 3% implemented teaching for meaning in all three. Another
finding revealed that teachers' classroom management style was related to teaching
practices, "teachers who established "orderly, enabling" learning
environments were the most likely to orient their instruction in at least one
subject area toward meaning" (p. 772). This was incontrast to teachers
who utilized "tight, restrictive control that effectively narrowed the
range of learning opportunities and instructional strategies that children encountered"
(p. 772). The manner in which teachers responded to student diversity was also
related to teaching style. Those teachers that utilized students' backgrounds
as a positive basis for developing and implementing learning activities in the
classroom were more likely to use alternative teaching practices. The results
were not as clear with regards to the contribution of supplemental programs,
such as Chapter 1 or special education, on instructional practices. This study also investigated the relative effectiveness of the two approaches,
traditional and alternative. The results indicated that students who were exposed
to instruction emphasizing meaning were more likely to demonstrate a grasp of
advanced skills by the end of the first school year than were students exposed
to conventional teaching practices. The results also suggested that exposure
to alternative teaching practices did not hamper the students’ acquisition
of basic skills. The final finding, in terms of relative effectiveness, suggests
that alternative teaching practices were as effective for low-achieving as for
high-achieving students. This study analyzed the effect of the school context on teaching practices.
There were strong differences between schools in the percentage of teachers
who implemented alternative teaching practices. The researchers found that although
classroom-level factors did play a small role in teaching style, the interaction
of school, district, and state policies had a much greater effect: "those
settings in which pressure to adopt meaning-oriented practices was accompanied
by extensive professional support and some measure of autonomy were more likely
to contain large numbers of teachers emphasizing meaning in their teaching"
(p. 774). They also found that the existence of mandates without corresponding
professional support was ineffective in changing teaching behaviors. The implications of this research are threefold. First, students from low-income
families do appear to benefit from alternative teaching practices that emphasize
meaning. Second, even teachers who currently implement some kind of teaching
for meaning need support to expand their teaching repertoire and master and
maintain effective teaching practices. Finally, there needs to be a balance
between professional support, pressure for change, and autonomy - none of these
elements alone are sufficient to bring about reform. Lewis, A. C. (1995). An overview of the standards movement. Phi Delta
Kappan, 76(10), 744-750. This article discusses national standards as a controversial topic in education
reform. The author proposes that one reason for this debate is "exaggerated
claims by opponents and proponents" (p. 745). Lewis seeks to clarify the
debate by discussing the definition of standards, sources of standards, who
will be responsible for judging standards, some sources of controversy, whether
teachers are sufficiently involved in standards setting, and whether there is
public support for the standards movement. She claims that standards in education
have a long history, but that what separates the current debate is a focus on
high standards. This has come about quickly, within a decade or so, from little
support in the 1970's for a national test, to strong support of state and national
lawmakers for the Goals 2000 legislation, which is a national policy for a system
of standards and assessments. The development of standards for student education
is portrayed as proceeding simultaneously with a movement for teacher licensure
and development standards. Lewis contrasts four types of standards: content, performance, opportunity-to-learn,
and world class standards. Content standards define what should be learned in
different subject areas. Performance standards establish satisfactory levels
of learning. Opportunity-to-learn standards attempt to identify the resources
and conditions necessary for all students to have an equal opportunity to meet
performance standards. World class standards are based on the content and performance
standards of students in other countries that have demonstrated superior academic
performance. This article reviews the history of the current standards movement, beginning
with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), which released
the first set of standards in 1989, which have since become a model for national
standards development. Some of the subsequent difficulties, such as with the
attempts to set history and English/language arts standards, are reviewed in
this article, along with various state efforts and those of projects, such as
New Standards. The issue of standards approval, is a controversial one. Originally,
the Goals 2000 legislation provided for a National Education Standards and Improvement
Council (NESIC), however considerable congressional wariness about the role
of this organization has significantly diminished its proposed role. Therefore,
there is some lack of consensus on standards and the role of any national oversight,
which does leave open the possibility of the development of inappropriate standards
set by some states. The author presents the example of standards set by the
state of Virginia, which described African slaves as "settlers." Lewis provides several sources for the controversy surrounding the standards
movement. First, she examines the public controversy around the purposes of
standards and their effect on learning. As an example, she discusses the protest
over standards in Littleton, Colorado, that standards would result in a move
away from "the basics." She suggests that much of this controversy
results from a public confusion over standards versus outcomes and presents
an excerpt from a guide developed by Diane Ravitch (1995), distinguishing the
two: "First, content standards are clear and measurable. OBE [outcomes-based
education] outcomes are so frequently vague that they are inherently unmeasurable.
Second, content standards focus on cognitive learning, while OBE outcomes
may include not only cognitive learning but also affective skills, attitudes,
and psychosocial behaviors. Third, content standards are usually based on
traditional academic disciplines, such as history, English, science, mathematics,
civics, the arts, and geography. OBE outcomes include some traditional academic
disciplines but are mainly organized around interdisciplinary or nondisciplinary
topics (such as “communication,” “environment and ecology,”
“self-worth,” and “adaptability to change”). Even the
outcomes prescribed for academic subjects such as mathematics and science
are stated in generalities that provide little or no guidance to teachers,
testmakers, or textbook writers” (p. 748). Lewis also identifies as problematic the debate over content standards, especially
in subject areas such as history, where it has been particularly contentious.
In discussing whether teachers have been sufficiently involved in the debate
over standards, the author does not take a clear position, although she does
note that new efforts in developing licensure and professional standards for
teachers is a related and evolving trend. The collaboration between NCATE, NBPTS,
and state consortia appears to be fostering a relationship between teacher education
and professional development activities. A barrier to professional development,
however, is the lack of wide-spread recognition of the investment, such as intensive
staff development rather than traditional workshops, required for implementation
of high content standards. She also suggests that more public support will be
needed as well for this reform effort to take hold. The author closes with the
caution that this discussion may be moot in light of the significant changes
that technology will bring to education in the near future. She states that
"technology is about to break up the education system as we know it...computers
and other interactive resources now (or soon to be) available pose a serious
challenge to educators because they make control over the scope and sequence
of learning - the traditional role of the K-12 system - obsolete” (p. 750).
Lieberman, A. (1995). Practices that support teacher development: Transforming
conceptions of professional learning. Phi Delta Kappan, 76(8), 591-596.
This article discusses school reform from the perspective of supporting and
enhancing teacher learning. The common approach to inservice education, that
of workshops, conferences, or the use of consultants is challenged. A brief
discussion of a 1957 proposal by the National Society for the Study of Education
that teachers and schools become collaborators in providing inservice education
lends historical support to the author's contention that “the conventional
view of staff development as a transferable package of knowledge to be distributed
to teachers in bite-sized pieces needs radical rethinking” (p. 591-2).
Lieberman suggests that there are two conflicting assumptions about how teachers
learn best - through direct instruction in "best practices" or through
personal involvement in reform efforts. The latter assumption is fundamental
to the construction of schools as learning organizations and views teachers
as learners in much the same way that we have come to think about student learners
- "that people learn best through active involvement and through thinking
about and becoming articulate about what they have learned" (592). She
argues that for reform to really take hold, teachers must have opportunities
to reflect on, discuss, implement and improve new ideas, via involvement in
learning about, constructing and implementing these practices. The author states
that “what makes the difference for teachers is that the content of the
curriculum, the context of each classroom within the school, and the broader
context of the school itself all consider teacher participation to be central
to any changes in the functioning of the school” (p. 592). She provides
the following suggestions for implementing these reforms: 1) construct new roles
for teachers and staff; 2) create new structures, such as problem-solving teams;
3) work on new projects, such as standards development or proposal writing;
and 4) create a school-wide culture of inquiry. Several examples of the connection between in-school efforts and teacher learning
are provided, including the use of the Primary Language Record (PLR), and adopting
new approaches to curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment. The PLR, “a guide
for collecting evidence to aid teachers’ understanding of how students
become literate in the primary grades, encourages teachers to observe students’
habits as they are involved in learning tasks” (p. 593). Other efforts
include adopting new approaches to curriculum. Lieberman provides the examples
of the process approach to writing, whole-language approaches to language arts,
and the Foxfire pedagogy. She states that “these new pedagogical approaches
encourage teachers to be learners and to experience for themselves the struggle
for personal and intellectual growth that is an essential part of learning.
Teachers who use these approaches become sensitized to the nuances of learning
and to the needs of individuals and groups” (p. 594). In terms of assessment,
she discusses innovations involving portfolios. She describes a particular integrated
assessment approach, utilizing portfolios, implemented by the Central Park East
Secondary School to illustrate her contention that “a change in the method
of assessment can affect teacher learning and development in important ways”
(p. 594). Support for teacher learning outside of school was also discussed, using examples
of networks, collaboratives, coalitions and partnerships. These “provide
opportunities for teachers to commit themselves to topics that are of intrinsic
interest to them or that develop out of their work” (p. 594-5). Examples
of such supports outside of the schools include the Southern Maine Partnership,
The Foxfire Teacher Outreach Network, and the Four Seasons Network. The author concludes by providing a series of nine statements that summarize
and extend the positions she has taken in this article. These nine are as follows:
“Teachers’ professional development has been limited by lack of knowledge
about how teachers learn. Teachers’ definitions of the problems of practice have often been ignored.
The agenda for reform involves teachers in practices that have not been part
of the accepted view of teachers’ professional learning. Teaching has been described as a set of technical skills, leaving little room
for invention and the building of craft knowledge. Professional development opportunities have often ignored the critical importance
of the context within which teachers work. Strategies for change have often not considered the importance of support mechanisms
and the importance of learning over time. Time and the necessary mechanisms for inventing, as well as consuming, new
knowledge have often been absent from schools. The move from “direct teaching” to facilitating “in-school learning”
is connected to long-term strategies aimed not only at changing teaching practice,
but at changing the school culture as well. Networks, collaboratives, and partnerships provide teachers with professional
learning communities that support changes in teaching practices” (p. 595-6).
Shulman, L. S. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform.
Harvard Educational Review, 57(1), 1-22. In this article Shulman discusses the content, character, and sources for a
knowledge base for teaching and is written in response to questions regarding
the professionalization of teaching. This issue has come into focus as a result
of several reports that discussed how to improve teaching, both as an activity
and a profession. To analyze this issue, the author asks several questions:
“What are the sources of the knowledge base for teaching? In what terms
can these sources be conceptualized? What are the implications for teaching
policy and educational reform?” (p. 4). To answer these questions, Shulman
divides the discussion into two distinct analyses. First, he provides an overview
of one framework for the knowledge base for teaching and examines the sources
of that knowledge base. Then, he explores “the processes of pedagogical
reasoning and action within which such teacher knowledge is used” (p. 5).
The author contends that, although difficult to identify, there does exist
an elaborate knowledge base for teaching. In fact, he states that “teachers
themselves have difficulty in articulating what they know and how they know
it” (p. 6). He identifies the following categories of the knowledge base:
content; general pedagogy; curriculum; content pedagogy; learners and their
characteristics; educational contexts; and educational ends, purposes and values,
and their grounding in history and philosophy. Shulman states that “Among
those categories, pedagogical content knowledge is of special interest because
it identifies the distinctive bodies of knowledge for teaching. It represents
the blending of content and pedagogy into an understanding of how particular
topics, problems, or issues are organized, represented, and adapted to the diverse
interests and abilities of learners, and presented for instruction. Pedagogical
content knowledge is the category most likely to distinguish the understanding
of the content specialist from that of the pedagogue” (p. 8). Shulman suggests
that there are several sources for the teaching knowledge base, including the
content disciplines, the materials and settings of the institutionalized educational
process, research, and what he terms "the wisdom of practice itself"
(p. 8). Scholarship in content disciplines: The author argues that “A teacher
is a member of a scholarly community. he or she must understand the structures
of the subject matter, the principles of conceptual organization, and the principles
of inquiry that help answer two kinds of questions in each field: What are the
important ideas and skills in this domain? and How are new ideas added and efficient
ones dropped by those who produce knowledge in this area?...The teacher has
special responsibilities in relation to content knowledge, serving as the primary
source of student understanding of subject matter” (p. 9). Educational materials and structures: For a teacher to claim that he
or she “knows the territory” of teaching, that individual must be
familiar with the institutions, organizations, materials and mechanisms of teaching.
According to Shulman, “these include curricula with their scopes and sequences;
tests and testing materials; institutions with their hierarchies, their explicit
and implicit systems of rules and roles; professional teachers’ organizations
with their functions of negotiation, social change, and mutual protection; government
agencies from the district through the state and federal levels; and general
mechanisms of governance and finance” (p. 9). Formal educational scholarship: The body of scholarly literature is
another important source for the teaching knowledge base, including empirical
research and the philosophical, ethical and normative foundations of education.
There is also a growing body of research on generic principles of effective
teaching. These have already influenced teacher assessment, such as the National
Teachers Examination and state-level assessment of the teaching performance
of first year educators. Wisdom of practice: According to the author, these are “the maxims
that guide (or provide reflective rationalization for) the practice of able
teachers. One of the more important tasks for the research community is to work
with practitioners to develop codified representations of the above practical
pedagogical wisdom of able teachers” (p. 11). In Shulman’s research,
he strives to present highly contextualized accounts of such teaching practices,
in an effort to provide documentation of good practice as a source for teaching
standards and as a foundation for the scholarly literature. Finally, teaching, as a process of pedagogical reasoning and action, is elaborated
and a model for this process is presented. Shulman perceives teaching as a process
of pedagogical reasoning and action, which involves “a cycle through the
activities of comprehension, transformation, instruction, evaluation, and reflection.
The starting point and terminus for the process is an act of comprehension”
(p. 14). Sound reasoning relies on ethical, theoretical, empirical and practical
principles that have a general consensus of support among the teaching community.
This model of pedagogical reasoning as a cyclical process reflects the idea
of teaching as an active exchange of and interaction with ideas. The following
is Shulman’s model as represented in tabular form in his text (p. 15):
Comprehension of purposes, subject matter structures, ideas within and outside the discipline
Transformation Preparation: critical interpretation and analysis of texts, structuring and
segmenting, development of a curricular repertoire, and clarification of purposes
Representation: use of a representational repertoire which includes analogies,
metaphors, examples, demonstrations, explanations, and so forth Selection: choice from among an instructional repertoire which includes modes
of teaching, organizing, managing, and arranging Adaptation and Tailoring to Student Characteristics: consideration of conceptions,
preconceptions, misconceptions, and difficulties, language, culture and motivations,
social class, gender, age, ability, aptitude, interests, self concepts, and
attention Instruction Management, presentations, interactions, group work, discipline, humor, questioning,
and other aspects of active teaching, discovery or inquiry instruction, and
the observable forms of classroom teaching Evaluation Checking for student understanding during interactive teaching Testing student understanding at the end of lessons or units Evaluating one’s own performance, and adjusting for experiences Reflection Reviewing, reconstructing, reenacting and critically analyzing one’s own
and the class’ performance, and grounding explanations in evidence New Comprehensions Of purposes, subject matter, students, teaching, and self Consolidation of new understandings, and learnings from experience The article closes with a discussion of how the current teacher reform efforts
imply a conception of teacher competence and how the ideas presented in this
article figure into that debate. Current debates about reform center on standards
for teacher education and assessment of teacher knowledge and performance, which
Shulman states “are necessarily predicated on images of teaching and its
demands” (p. 20) and traditionally differ from the complex perspective
of teacher knowledge described by the author. He states that “the conception
of pedagogical reasoning places emphasis upon the intellectual basis for teaching
performance rather than on behavior alone” (p. 20). However, he recognizes
that revision of national board examinations, the organization and content of
teacher preparation programs, as well as how the scholarly foundations of education
are defined, will be needed. Shulman cautions that raising and changing standards
must be undertaken without standardization, so that an overly technical image
of teaching does not result. Smylie, M. A. (1996). From bureaucratic control to building human capital:
The importance of teacher learning in education reform. Educational Researcher,
25(9), 9-11. In this brief article, Smylie contrasts two theories of educational reform:
1) that which he terms the "theory-of-action" and which emphasizes
bureaucratic control; and 2) human capital theory. In defining the theory-of-action,
he states that “a central premise of this theory is that problems of schooling
are due in large part to lack of direction, excessive discretion, and low accountability
within the education system. This theory claims that these conditions can best
be corrected through external regulation and bureaucratic control” (p.
9). The author discusses standards and assessment, as they apply to these theories
and suggests that the "theory-as-action" perspective views standards
reform as an appropriate solution, although he contends that is an overly simplistic
one. He suggests that the human capital theory, which views standards and assessments
as only a portion of a more comprehensive reform agenda targeting the construction
of "human capital" in schools, is more realistic, although frequently
misunderstood and ignored. Smylie extends the concept of human capital beyond
the traditional economic connotation to include "the knowledge, skills,
dispositions, and social resources of adults in schools that can be applied
to promote children's learning and development" (p. 10). The author further
contrasts these two theories on the basis of their mechanisms for change; in
the first theory, change is motivated by control and in the second, by teacher
learning. He suggests that teacher learning has become an important topic in
the education literature and finds that theories of adult learning and descriptions
of "best practices" provide some pertinent information. A consistent
finding in the literature of adult learning and learning to teach is that “teachers
learn best when they are active in their own learning and when their opportunities
to learn are focused on concrete tasks of day-to-day work with students...These
theories indicate that teachers’ opportunities to learn should be problem
oriented and grounded in inquiry, experimentation, and reflection. They should
be collaborative, involving interaction with other teachers and educational
professionals as sources of new ideas and feedback. These opportunities should
be coherent, intensive, and ongoing. They should be instrumentally connected,
at least in part, to broader goals for student learning and school improvement”
(p. 10). A review of the best practices literature identifies the following
structures and processes as potentially effective means of supporting teacher
learning: “individually guided study, clinical supervision, and training;
interactive learning from curriculum and school improvement; and individual
and collaborative inquiry, such as action and teacher research” (p. 10).
Smylie also identifies several potential barriers to building human capital
in schools, including production models of schools and perceptions of teaching
as routinized labor. He states that “moving policy toward building human
capital, with an increased emphasis on teacher learning, will not be easy”
and continues that “it may be difficult to redirect policy toward building
human capital because the implications are too complicated to understand or
too radical to embrace...To build human capital effectively, we would have to
think differently about schools as organizations, restructure time and adult-student
relationships, and re-design teachers’ role and authority relations. It
would mean challenging the role of school districts, unions, and state education
agencies in professional development, the way funds are directed toward it,
and the entrenched economic and political interests that “supply”
it...Building human capital means investing in the very people - teachers -
who are seen by many as the primary source of the problems we wish to solve.
It also means investing in a strategy - professional development - that suffers
from a long-standing reputation for ineffectiveness. (p. 11). Smylie ends by
suggesting, however, that this avenue to school reform has more potential to
bring about comprehensive school reform than increased bureaucratic control.
Spencer, D. A. (1996). Teachers and educational reform. Educational Researcher,
25(9), 15-17. This brief article is a critique of criticisms leveled against teachers and
the teaching profession, most notably in the 1996 recommendations of the National
Commission on Teaching and America's Future. Spencer discusses these recurrent
public criticisms as "teacher bashing," which she posits stem from
the low status teachers hold in our society. She presents three sources for
this low status: 1) gender inequality in the workforce; 2) the low pay of teachers
in relation to professionals, such as physicians and lawyers; and 3) the low
status of children, for whom teachers are charged responsibility. This author also discusses issues of the professionalism of teaching and the
role of teachers in educational reform. In terms of the professionalism of teaching,
the author raised several questions, including what the effects are of repeated
criticism on teachers' status, how demands for greater accountability affect
teachers' workload and their ability to provide high quality of service to students,
what the effects of teaching reforms are on teachers' work, and how increasing
the social status of teachers would influence the complexity of their work.
She states that "at the same time that teachers have been pressed to increase
their professional standards, they have also been expected to continually introduce
innovations in their classrooms and reforms in their schools" (p. 16).
In terms of teachers' roles in educational reform, Spencer discussed an assumed
link between structural reforms and changes in teachers' practices, and hence,
students' learning. She suggests that this link does not have a firm grounding
in educational research, stating that "research shows these assumed connections
are extremely complex and often only loosely linked" (p. 16), and that
a more tenable approach to reform would ground efforts in changes in teachers'
knowledge, skills, and norms and organizational changes, rather than structural
changes. The author also investigated factors affecting teachers and educational
reform, with the primary conclusion being that the individual school context
for reform must be taken into account, as individual settings are extremely
varied. She suggests that teachers' voices, their knowledge, experiences, and
perceptions about work in the classroom, need to be heard to better understand
why a uniform vision for reform is not workable. Spencer closes by suggesting
that efforts toward reform must incorporate "a more fluid and dynamic model"
that reveals "the complexities of classroom interaction and allows the
diversity and variability of teachers' multiple voices to be heard. Indeed,
the major theme which emerges from much of the research on teachers' perceptions
of their work is that there is "constancy of variability." This constancy
of variability is what must be captured in recommendations for educational reform"
(p. 17). Sykes, G. (1996). Reform of and as professional development. Phi Delta
Kappan, 77(7), 465-467. This article introduces a special issue of Phi Delta Kappan, dedicated to issues
of school reform. The author discusses two judgments about the professional
development of teachers. The first views teacher learning at the core of reform
efforts. The other views conventional professional development efforts as very
inadequate. In this latter judgment, there are not enough resources devoted
to professional development and the manner in which they are carried out are
too ineffective to produce change. Sykes contends that as of yet, reform efforts
of all types are insufficient to bring about the wide scale reform needed. He
suggests that reform of the reform effort is needed, with attention to multiple
levels of the education structure. Sykes contends that reform of the current
professional development system will be difficult, as it is institutionalized
at all levels, by federal, state and district policies. However, he is not completely
pessimistic, suggesting that lessons learned in preservice teacher education
have much to tell us about inservice teacher education reform. The author relates comments from his student teachers that exemplify the dilemma
faced by all teacher educators - the cry from their students to provide them
with concrete and practical solutions to the myriad of difficulties they encounter
in their classrooms. He suggests, however, that understanding that there many
not be a single, well-defined, best solution may convey several important lessons,
that decisions must come from one's stance toward practice, that developing
confidence in one's own responses is important, that a crucial source of support
is a community of peers, and that improving practice is a result of an alternating
interplay between experience and reflection. Sykes suggests that while typical
inservice training, which seeks to simply add to a teacher's professional repertoire
of teaching techniques may be comfortable, participation in reform can have
the opposite effect by making teachers, at least initially, feel less competence
and confident. He discusses other realistic problems with reform efforts, including
a lack of firm support from research, institutional resistance to change, and
a lack of supporting resources. He states that "when a teacher leaves the
well-worn track of familiar practice, such reinforcements as curricular materials,
assessment instruments, administrative oversight, collegial approval, student
understanding, and parent/community expectations may be lost. New practices
cut across the grain and bring to the surface all the supporting connections
that link the social, organizational, and technical systems of schooling. Professional
development that tugs hard on any one thread of the tapestry soon begins to
unravel the whole; reform inevitably ramifies” (p. 467). However, he contends
that the articles in this issues are exemplars of new work that is beginning
to change how we view professional development and its relationship to reform
efforts. He concludes by suggesting that the dual themes for the future are
reform of and reform as professional development. Wise, A. E. (1996). Building a system of quality assurance for the teaching
profession: Moving into the 21st century. Phi Delta Kappan, 78(3), 191-192.
In this brief introductory article to a special section on quality assurance,
the author clearly states his position that schools of education must educate
new teachers to be able to help students function in our changing society and
that current teachers must acquire new skills and knowledge. He states that
“for too long, teacher preparation and licensing have been hostage to the
status quo” (p. 191). To assure the quality of our teaching force, the
teaching profession must implement a three part, interconnected system: accreditation
of initial teacher education institutions, performance-based licensing or credentialing
of new teachers, and certification of accomplished, experienced teachers. This
continuum of teacher preparation and development, from preservice to certification
includes the following phases: preservice preparation, induction (extended clinical
preparation and assessment) and continued professional development. Each of
these phases requires a set of standards, which are in the process of development
into a coherent system for quality assurance through the efforts of organizations,
such as the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE),
the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), and the Council
of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). Although major challenges still exist,
such as incorporating professional development into the mainstream of teacher
preparation and state development of performance-based licensing standards,
the goal of this reform effort is "a high-quality teaching force for all
of America's students, so that we can create a better future for all of America”
(p. 192). Wise, A. E., & Leibrand, J. (1996). Profession-based accreditation:
A foundation for high-quality teaching. Phi Delta Kappan, 78(3), 202-206.
The authors state that it is now well recognized that "the expertise of
the teacher is the most important school-based factor in determining student
achievement" (p. 202). They argue that we must begin to see teacher development
as existing along a continuum of time, with preservice teacher education as
the starting point. This article focuses on the ways that professional standards,
such as the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE)
accreditation, can function as a reform vehicle. Considering that many states
are implementing performance-oriented teacher licensing systems, NCATE has increasing
taken a collaborative role in