Building Effective and Successful Teams: Professional Development Through Communities of Adult Learners

Because meeting the diverse needs of today?s young children and their families can be best accomplished through a team approach to service delivery, early childhood educators have a specific need for professional development in teamwork. In an effort to understand how a collaborative, adult learner-focused model of professional development could be used to effectively provide team training, the Building Effective and Successful Teams (BEST) model of team training was developed, which allows educators to form communities of learners in order to collaboratively train together over time, within the context of their classrooms, and at a pace consistent with their teaching schedules. This book presents a longitudinal study focused on the influence of the BEST model of team training in the development of team behaviors over time. Implications from this study bring together the concepts of adult learning and collaborative professional development in an effort to aid anyone needing or providing team development training in educational settings.

Dr. Murphy is currently the Director of Research and Evaluation at the University of Idaho Center on Disabilities and Human Development. Her research interests include program evaluation, online learning, collaborative professional development, and team building.