Section archive - Professional Development

The primary purpose of this study is to examine whether older entrants to teaching are more likely than younger recruits to voluntarily remain in low-income schools and the teaching profession as a whole. The author found that older TFA entrants to teaching had a lower risk than did younger entrants of leaving low-income schools, the teaching profession, and broader school-based roles. The author further found that older entrants’ backgrounds differed from younger entrants. These findings suggest that older entrants to teaching may prove a promising source of teachers for low-income schools.

This research depicts different reform initiatives which were conducted in middle school at the fourth-largest urban center in the United States over the decade from 1999 to 2009. The study focuses on teachers’ experiences of three reform endeavors and how tensions in teacher knowledge and community developed as a consequence of each. The participants were Nineteen educators, including several main teacher participants as well as some supporting teacher and administrators.

In recent years, there has been an increasing trend for experienced primary teachers to undertake a degree qualification in New Zealand. This study was interested to examine the question ‘In what ways does the completion of a Bachelor of Education (Teaching) degree contribute to practicing primary teachers’ professional learning?’ Quantitative and Qualitative data were collected through questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews. 202 primary teachers responded to the questionnaire and eight teacher were interviewed. The teachers’ questionnaire and interview responses provided convincing evidence that they perceived that degree study had made a significant contribution to their professional learning.

This paper uses knowledge integration framework to analyze studies on professional development in technology-enhanced science. The question of how professional development enhances teachers’ support for students’ inquiry science learning is the focus of the work. Findings suggest that professional development programs that engaged teachers in a comprehensive, constructivist-oriented learning process and were sustained beyond 1 year significantly improved students’ inquiry learning experiences in K–12 science classrooms.