Teachers Caught in the Action: Professional Development That Matters

“We invite you to join our authors in this lively discussion of professional development. Our hope is that you will come away with fresh ideas, deeper understanding, and persuasive evidence to support your own work in helping teachers deepen their practice and enhance their professional learning.”

Ann Lieberman and Lynne Miller

In their newest volume, Lieberman and Miller enlist a stellar group of contributors offer―once again―the best of what is known and practiced about professional development in schools.

What is the purpose of staff development? What ends does it seek? To answer these often overlooked questions, the editors turn to the distinguished Maxine Greene, Carl D. Glickman, Derrick P. Aldridge, Judith Warren Little, Marilyn Cochran-Smith, and Susan L. Lytle. In opening chapters they remind us that it is essential to tie what we do in staff development to larger goals.

Because what we do in staff development can best be understood in terms of Contexts, Strategies, and Structures, the remainder of the book features distinguished educators who write from their own unique experiential and theoretical stances. Jacqueline Ancess describes how teachers in New York City secondary schools increase their own learning while improving student outcomes • Milbrey W. McLaughlin and Joel Zarrow demonstrate how teachers learn to use data to improve their practice and meet educational standards • Lynne Miller presents a case study of a long-lived school–university partnership • Beverly Falk recounts stories of teachers working together to develop performance assessments, to understand their student’s learning, to re-think their curriculum, and much more • Laura Stokes analyzes a school that successfully uses inquiry groups.

There are further contributions (including some from novice teachers) by Anna Richert Ershler, Ann Lieberman, Diane Wood, Sarah Warshauer Freedman, and Joseph P. McDonald. These powerful exemplars from practice provide a much-needed overview of what matters and what really works in professional development today.

Ann Lieberman was a senior scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and is now at Stanford University. Lynne Miller is Professor of Educational Leadership and Director of the Southern Maine Partnership at the University of Southern Maine.