The Practitioner Center: Innovation in Teacher Training from Practitioner to Practitioner.

The Practitioner Center, an innovation which provides a vehicle for a transactional approach to teacher growth and professional development, incorporates the concept of peer leadership with "teachers teaching teachers" and teachers acting as coaches. The organizers of the practitioner center decided on a 5-part format which is covered in an intensive 3-day workshop developed by the Los Angeles Unified School District (California) to inform interdisciplinary team organizations from various middle schools. The five parts include: expanding the knowledge base and rationale for middle school reform; the teaming process; Cooperative Literacy (which provides a management and instructional protocol for implementing more active collaborative and cooperative learning); integrating the disciplines; and assessment. To accumulate some data reflecting the degree of implementation of reform ideas presented through the training, a follow-up survey was mailed to 182 participants. Returns yielded a sample size of 60. Response analysis suggests indicators of trends regarding areas toward which teachers are able to move as they confront the middle school reform issue at their own schools. A copy of the survey is included in the body of the paper. (LL)