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Given the time and resources invested in teacher professional development, it is important to find ways to extend positive outcomes over the long term. Judith Haymore Sandholtz, Cathy Ringstaff, and Jessica Triant investigated whether modest follow-up supports influenced the sustainability of outcomes for elementary school teachers who had previously participated in science education professional development programs. Results indicate that follow-up supports reversed declines (in the years after the professional development ended) in teachers’ sense of preparedness to teach science, use of selected instructional strategies, and implementation of inquiry-based student activities in science.

This exploratory study examines the relationship between preservice teachers’ performance on a teaching performance assessment for licensure in elementary mathematics and a measure of knowledge that, in studies of practicing teachers, was found to predict effective mathematics teaching. A sample of 89 preservice teachers completed the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT) and the classroom video analysis (CVA) instrument. Correlation analyses found overall weak associations between measures for the whole group. For groups of high, medium, and low performers on PACT, average scores on the CVA measure and its subscales varied in the predicted direction. However, individuals within the PACT performing groups had a relatively broad range of scores on the CVA, and several preservice teachers who performed poorly on PACT had average or better than average performance on the CVA. Similarly, several of the PACT high performers scored below the whole group CVA average. In addition to suggesting areas for future research, the findings raise questions about assessing preservice teachers’ readiness to teach mathematics and the use of a single measure to make licensing decisions.

The implementation of teaching performance assessments has prompted a range of concerns. Some educators question whether these assessments provide information beyond what university supervisors gain through their formative evaluations and classroom observations of candidates. This research examines the relationship between supervisors’ predictions and candidates’ performance on a summative assessment based on a capstone teaching event, the Performance Assessment for California Teachers. The study, based on records for 337 teacher candidates over a 2-year period, specifically addresses the following questions: To what extent do university supervisors predict candidates’ total scores? On which questions and categories of the assessment do supervisors most accurately predict their candidates’ scores? Do supervisors predict scores more accurately for high- and low-performing candidates? The findings indicate that university supervisors’ perspectives did not always correspond with outcomes on the performance assessment, particularly for high and low performers.

In response to the establishment of standards by states and professional organizations, many local school districts have adopted a standards-based curriculum. The expressed purpose of standards is to improve student academic performance by providing teachers with a common sequence of targets at which to aim instruction. In this study, we examine unintended consequences of a school district's standards-based reform effort. Though the district intended to enhance student achievement and equalize educational opportunities for students, it instead caused the evolution of what can be called standards gaps, which resulted in differentiated curriculum and instruction along lines of students’ academic ability.

Despite many efforts at the national, state, and local levels to promote the use of computers in K-12 classrooms, over the past 20 years, the impact of the computer on teaching and learning has been minimal. In this article, we examine how one school district has advanced the use of computers in the classroom by focusing first on curriculum rather than on technology. While national and state technology standards for teachers, as well as educational technology textbooks, tend to start with computer hardware and how to troubleshoot it, teachers in the district described here spend very little time on hardware or troubleshooting. Instead, as a result of district choices with regard to technology, support, and training, teachers are able to bypass the hardware and troubleshooting and move quickly to more productive and inventive uses of technology in the classroom. Our research offers a paradox for furthering the use of computers in classrooms —if we take away expectations for technical skills and allow teachers to focus on developing curriculum, evaluating learning materials, and thinking about how to provide better learning opportunities for their students, teachers are likely to use technology more effectively and creatively in their teaching.

Despite many efforts at the national, state, and local levels to promote the use of computers in K-12 classrooms, over the past 20 years, the impact of the computer on teaching and learning has been minimal. In this article, we examine how one school district has advanced the use of computers in the classroom by focusing first on curriculum rather than on technology. While national and state technology standards for teachers, as well as educational technology textbooks, tend to start with computer hardware and how to troubleshoot it, teachers in the district described here spend very little time on hardware or troubleshooting. Instead, as a result of district choices with regard to technology, support, and training, teachers are able to bypass the hardware and troubleshooting and move quickly to more productive and inventive uses of technology in the classroom. Our research offers a paradox for furthering the use of computers in classrooms —if we take away expectations for technical skills and allow teachers to focus on developing curriculum, evaluating learning materials, and thinking about how to provide better learning opportunities for their students, teachers are likely to use technology more effectively and creatively in their teaching.

Reports profiling America's teachers are drawing increased attention to concerns about teachers’ subject-matter preparation and out-of-field assignments. In this article, we focus on two 1st-year high school teachers who graduated from the same teacher preparation program in the same year. One is credentialed in the subject area, and the other is not. Using comparative case methodology, we investigate and contrast how the teachers taught a unit on Steinbeck's novel Cannery Row. We analyze their teaching using Shulman's (1987) model of pedagogical reasoning, which divides the overall instructional process into components. We initially describe their teaching without clarifying which teacher is credentialed and which is not. After revealing the out-of-field teacher, we examine other factors that contribute to the differences in these two teachers. In a subsequent section, we argue that out-of-field teaching is a more complex issue than it appears and identify factors contributing to the complexity. We propose conceptualizing out-of-field teaching, as well as teaching assignments generally, as a matter of goodness of fit to take into account the relationship among teacher characteristics, contextual characteristics, and teaching placements.

This research compares the strengths and weaknesses of 10 different service learning projects at six high schools in one urban school district. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative data, the study examines critical design elements in developing service learning programs that produce positive attitudinal outcomes for students. Results indicate that students had more positive attitudes toward their academic achievement, self-esteem, teachers, and peers when they participated in programs that rated highly on the four design criteria: duration, location, amount of personal contact with beneficiaries, and focus of the project.

I am a border woman. I grew up between two cultures, the Mexican (with a heavy Indian influence) and the Anglo (as a member of a colonized people in our own territory).... Living on borders and in margins, keeping intact one's shifting and multiple identity and integrity, is like trying to swim in a new element, an 'alien' element (Anzaldua, 1987, preface). In Borderlands, Gloria Anzaldua describes her experiences in straddling two cultures and points out that borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them (p. 3). Similar to the setting Anzaldua portrays, schools and universities exist as two distinct cultures with borders differentiating the practitioners from the professors. The emergence of school-university partnerships has created a borderland where those who work in both settings may find themselves trying to swim in a new element. Many school-university partnerships are based on the premise of equal partners working together in a mutually beneficial relationship (Sirotnik & Goodlad, 1988). Professional development schools (PDSs), for example, create a new institutional coalition of universities, schools of education, and public schools, a coalition based on the notion of true reciprocity (Holmes Group, 1990). Emerging as one of the most common collaborative arrangements for preparing prospective teachers (Yinger & Hendricks, 1990), PDSs have three main goals: to support student learning, to support the professional education of novice and veteran teachers, and to encourage inquiry and research related to educational practice (Levine, 1988, 1992). Extending beyond other school reform efforts, PDSs offer promising possibilities in creating new frames for teacher learning, building new ways of knowing, and providing new opportunities for mutual restructuring of schools and universities (Darling-Hammond, 1994). However, the process of creating professional development schools is a complex enterprise, particularly because it involves combining institutions with distinctive and possibly conflicting missions, organizational structures, and cultures. These distinctions lead to a variety of challenges such as defining roles and responsibilities (Miller & Silvernail, 1994), resolving conflicting fundamental interests (Snyder, 1994), establishing interinstitutional authority and fiscal responsibility (Neufeld, 1992), and providing longterm rewards (Lieberman, 1992; Sandholtz & Merseth, 1992). Some find the university, more than the schools, to be tradition-bound with a culture based on individual entrepreneurship, deep seeded conservatism, and an avoidance of risk and change (Miller, 1993, p. 5). Others encounter a large gulf between teachers' and professors' views on teaching and learning that results in people frequently working at cross-purposes (Winitzky, Stoddart, & O'Keefe, 1992). Institutional differences arise in nearly every aspect of these collaborative ventures. A strategy for bridging these differences is the creation of viable liaison positions in which people, both knowledgeable about and comfortable with the cultures of the collaborating institutions, move freely between them, interpret the language, understand the reward systems, and translate the ideas of those in one culture to those in another (Clark, 1988, p. 61). These boundary spanners, if legitimate in both institutions, establish critical links between schools and universities. Recruiting such individuals is challenging, given the established reward system for university faculty and the structured schedule of public school teachers. Lieberman (1992) points out that these boundary-spanning positions involve the traditional categories of teaching, research, and service, though not in the traditional sense and thus generally not recognized in the university's promotion process. For teachers, released time or joint appointments can be difficult to arrange, and additional work outside of school hours becomes burdensome. …

The addition of computers to classrooms influences not only instruction but also classroom management, producing both unexpected problems and benefits. This article summarizes the experiences of thirty-two elementary and secondary teachers as they adapted to teaching in high-access-to-technology classrooms. Using a three-stage model, this article presents the teachers' classroom management concerns, their strategies for solving problems, and their abilities to utilize the technology to their advantage. Teachers moved from frustration to success in coping with changes brought about by the introduction of technology to their classrooms. This article highlights three main issues relevant to practice and research. First, classroom management is not a skill that is mastered once and for all. Second, this article provides further support to the belief that educational change takes time. Finally, it illustrates that teacher change is not unidirectional. Teachers progress through stages of concern in an idiosyncratic manner. If I had my druthers, I don't think I would ever look at a computer again. One of my students got into the Corvus network and lost lots of information because he doesn't know what he is doing. It's a typical situation, and it's caused a major problem because now the computers are down. There are so many variables like this that we deal with on a day to day basis that I didn't anticipate being part of this program. I'm anxious for the weekend so I don't have to do anything with computers (AT, November 16, 1988).1

Collaborative teacher education programs add to the already heavy demands on practicing teachers, who may question the payoffs for the extra time and effort required. Inducements-contribution theory is used to examine teachers' experiences in such a program, identify the demands and rewards for the teachers, and analyze the balance between the two. The paper provides a framework for analyzing individuals' decisions to participate in collaborative programs and offers suggestions for program designers.