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Quality Professional Development: What Do We ThinkWe Know?Carol Vukelich a & Lisa C. Wrenn ba School of Education , University of Delaware , Newark , USAb Christina School District , Wilmington , Delaware , USAPublished online: 30 Aug 2012.

To cite this article: Carol Vukelich & Lisa C. Wrenn (1999) Quality Professional Development: What Do We Think We Know?,Childhood Education, 75:3, 153-160, DOI: 10.1080/00094056.1999.10522003

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1 Quality Professional Carol Vukelich and Lisa C. Wrenn

Carol School Vukelich of Education, is Professor, University I Development of Delaware, Newark. Lisa C. Wrenn is a 4thgrade teacher, Christina School District, Wilmington, Delaware.

c isa graduated from college feeling she had received a ”superb education” but had chosen the most “complex job in the world-teaching. “How will I possibly remember everything I have learned?,” she wondered. ”There were all the curriculum areas to know. Then, there was knowing the children I would teach-their learning styles, environments, personalities, disabilities, gifts, intelligences. The list was endless!”

Fortunately for Lisa, her first teaching position was in a district where the education philosophy was similar to the one she had developed during her undergraduate training. In addition, a team of curriculum specialists worked with Lisa to ensure her smooth entry into the teaching profession. Even so, that first year she says she ”probably cried enough to fill an oversized Jacuzzi t u b and had ”put in a tremendous number of hours.” By the end of the year, however, Lisa was convinced that her students, the school, the district, her principal, and the curriculum specialists were all “wonderful.”

She would have liked to teach there forever-but she didn’t. When she married she moved to a new state to teach in a new school, at a new grade level, in a Team Assisted Mastery program (in which special education children are included in the ”regular” classroom with two teachers, at least one certified in special education), in a district with no supportive curricu- lum specialists. Lisa quickly learned about change-and about the need to discover the means to support her continued professional development- what Regie Routman (1996, p. 171) describes as taking ”charge of [her] own professional development and learning.”

This article recounts one of Lisa’s professional development experiences in her newly adopted state-one of her efforts to engage in lifelong learning and become the best possible teacher she could. Our purpose is to answer two questions: 1) What are the tenets of quality professional development? and 2) How were these elements exhibited in Lisa’s experience? We offer these tenets as useful suggestions to those planning and implementing teacher professional development activities, and to teachers attempting to select quality professional development experiences. We know that much remains to be learned about what constitutes quality professional develop- ment. “Our understanding of professional development is a mix of fairly solid ideas, beliefs, myths, and conjecture” (Ball, 1996, p. 507). “To call these tenets ’knowledge’ seems problematic, for they are unevenly inspected and warranted” (Ball, 1996, p. 501). Hence, we offer these ideas with the qualification that they are our current best conjecture about quality profes- sional development.

Lisa quickly learned

and about

the need t o

over the

means t o support

her continued

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Exhibits a Clear Focus on a Subject. We believe that professional development should have a clear focus on a single subject area, teaching method, or approach to reform (Firestone & Pennell, 1997). This gives partici- pants a common purpose and a single identity. Each professional development opportunity may be an ad- junct to a state’s or district’s implementation of a new policy, or it could be a stand-alone effort with the sole aim of enhancing teacher learning, motivation, and empowerment (Clune, 1993). Over the long haul, there should be a balance between the institution’s and the teachers’ (participants’) professional development ini- tiatives (LeMahieu, Roy, & Foss, n.d.).

Lisa enrolled in a literacy-focused professional de- velopment seminar offered by her local school district, in cooperation with the local university. The Delaware State Board of Education’s (1995) English language arts curriculum frameworks document calls on teachers to use a constructivist approach to literacy instruction. The document was writtenby the Commission, a group of teachers, administrators, parents, teacher educators, and parents; it encourages all districts, schools, and teachers to plan opportunities for students to learn [that] exemplify the following characteristics and per- mit students to: engage in authentic and purposeful communication activities; explore varied literacy and technical genres of reading and purposes of writing; use materials appropriate to their individual and de- velopmental needs; be active participants in gathering information from a variety of sources; engage in inte- grated and meaningful communication; be assessed through ongoing instructional activities [that] require them to solve problems, gather and use resources, work collaboratively, and assume responsibility for their literacy learning; be involved in language arts activities throughout the curriculum; and be constructive and critical members of a community of lifelong learners (Delaware State Board of Education, 1995, p. vi).

The frameworks document redefmes what constitutes good literacy teaching in Delaware; the Commission recognized that many teachers might need to rethink their literacy teaching methods and curriculum.

Focuses on the Needs of the Participating Teachers. We believe that professional development should be based on the participants’ interests and needs. Furthermore, it should be relevant to actual classroom work and to students’ learning achievement needs (Cameron, 1996). What do these teachers’ students need to know and be able to do? What knowledge, skills, and attitudes must these educators possess if the desired student outcomes are to be realized (Sparks & Hirsh, 1997)? Teachers’ needs must be considered within the broader school, district, state, and national contexts.

Addressing the teachers’ and the students’ learning needs presents an immediate challenge to professional development planners. How do planners determine teachers’ needs and the connection between teachers’ needs and their student learning outcome needs? Do they administer a formal needs assessment, such as might be done with a questionnaire (LeMahieu, Roy, & Foss, n.d.)? Do they use life history research method- ology, or an autobiography, and ask participants to prepare literacy histories, with the intent of using the information to understand teachers’ prior knowledge and beliefs? Such information is important when plan- ning appropriate learning opportunities, because teach- ers’ prior beliefs and literacy experiences provide lenses through which their current learning will be viewed (Johnson, 1992; Spodek, 1996). Should planners hold discussions to uncover the participants’ beliefs so that they can relate the teachers’ beliefs to particular prac- tices and underlying theories (Richardson, 1994)?

Although the ”how” of determining teachers’ needs is unclear, it remains imperative to discover them. And then, once group needs are determined, one must con- sider how to meet each participant’s needs. Thus, the ”one size fits all” model offered by many professional development classes will not suffice.

For the literacy seminar, the district’s administrators used classroom observations and teacher professional development needs surveys to learn the teachers’ needs. The seminar Lisa attended was designed to support teachers’ efforts to help their students meet the state’s four English language arts standards: to construct meaning from text, to write for different purposes and audiences, to gather and evaluate information, and to connect self to society and culture. Seminar partici- pants would earn three credits, paid for by the district (credits that could be used for advancement on the district’s salary increment scale), as a modest incentive for their participation. The philosophy of the district administrators and seminar organizers is fully in line with Firestone and Pennell’s (1997, p. 263) conclusion: Extrinsic incentives (like pay or credits) will encourage teachers to experiment with specific professional de- velopment activities, but ”engagement deep enough to really influence how teachers teach will occur only when they receive the intrinsic incentives that come from learning that is useful in the classroom.”

Once the seminar leaders knew the names of the semi- nar participants, they forwarded a self-rating form to each participant so that they could learn about the partici- pants’ perspectives on literacy learning and teachmg (see Figure 1). They used the teachers’ responses to help guide their selection of reading materials, and to form their initial ideas on how to facilitate the teachers’ learning.

Lisa’s interest in literacy dates to her junior high school years and to her language arts teacher, Mrs.

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Indicate your current stance regarding each statement. In other words, ask yourself the question, “To what extent does each statement reflect my classroom practices?” Put an X on the line to position yourself on the continuum.

Statement Placement Exactly Me Not Me

1. Students have daily opportunities to read literature of their choice. 2. Students have daily opportunities to write about topics of their choice. 3. Students are exposed to a variety of genres and a range of authors. 4. While maintaining student choice of topic, opportunities are provided for

students to write for varied purposes and audiences. 5. Reading and writing centers are stocked with varied and abundant materials. 6. Punctuation, grammar, and spelling are taught in the context of writing. 7. Additional practice is provided to ensure mastery of handwriting, punctua-

tion, grammar, and spelling. 8. Writing mini-lessons teach content and mechanics. 9. Conventional spelling is not required until students edit for publication. 10. All pieces are edited. 11. Vocabulary that a reader needs to know to understand a story is taught prior

12. When a story is too difficult for my students, I read aloud while the students

13. I have three to four reading groups in my classroom. 14. I administer running records on all my students. 15. If some of my students are not reading, I assess their print awareness. 16. I use rubrics to evaluate students’ writing. 17. I teach the same themes each year, adding new and innovative activities as

18. I read aloud to my students daily. 19. I organize my writers‘ workshop so that each student is doing the same step

20. Two students are reading the same text. I pair a good reader with a poor

21. I accommodate learning styles by permitting students reading below grade

to reading.

use their texts to follow along.

I find them.

of the process.

reader, so the good reader can read the text to the poor reader.

level to do art activities to demonstrate text comprehension.

Figu

Stonesifer. Through Mrs. Stonesifer’s guidance, Lisa learned to love reading and writing. She still has the purple pencil with the motto “Don’t be an eggplant!” engraved on it that Mrs. Stonesifer gave every student at the end of 9th grade. ”An ’eggplant’ was someone boring who never gave critical or creative thought to anything-a person who was just a big blob, like an eggplant,” Lisa explains. Some day Lisa hopes to come up with her own ”vegetable motto.”

Lisa’s more important pressing goal is to pass her love of literacy on to her students, as Mrs. Stonesifer did for her. Lisa was eager to join a group of colleagues who shared her commitment to exploring literacy teaching practices, her willingness to talk about concerns, and her eagerness to participate in critical discourse aimed at improving their literacy teaching. Earning credits for her participation was ”nice,” but credit was not her driving force.

Is Ongoing and Sustained. We know that professional development should be long-range and ongoing, and we recognize that learning is incremental and needs to

re 1

be supported over time (LeMahieu, Roy, & FOSS, n.d.; Smylie, 1996). Professional development planners must recognize that teachers do not change their practices overnight. In order to use a different approach, teach- ers must unlearn as much as they learn (Ball, 1996). Participants need time to experiment with, and reflect on, their practice in a supportive setting.

Unfortunately, single-event professional development activities (e.g., conferences, day-long sessions)--what A1 Shanker (1996, p. 223) called “one-shot workshops de- voted to the reform of the month” and what Judith Little (1993, p. 132) calls an “implementation-of-innovations” model-have been the most frequent form of profes- sional development. While such activities may be useful for introducing ideas, they do not facilitate change in classroom practices. Little evidence indicates that single- event professional development activities work; more evidence suggests that such activities seldom lead to noticeable improvements or changes in professional prac- tice (Osterman & Kottkamp, 1993).

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Furthermore, these single-event professional devel- opment activities typically assume an inappropriate stance toward teacher change. They present ideas, give tips, provide handouts, project a certainty about the topic, and assume that the giving and receiving of public knowledge will lead to behavioral change. At best, single-event professional development activities can be used to suggest new classroom practices (Little, 1993). Helping teachers blend these technical skills into their classrooms, however, requires adequate opportu- nities for practice as well as time for classroom consul- tation and coaching. The days are over when educators sit back passively while an “expert” tells them about new ideas and new practices (Sparks & Hirsh, 1997).

Lisa joined her colleagues and the two seminar lead- ers from 4:OO to 6:30 p.m. every other Tuesday from October through May. She had read books and articles on literacy instruction so that she could participate actively and critically in the discourse. Always con- cerned about her teaching, Lisa continued to think deeply about her literacy practices; by now, in fact, she kept a record of her wonderings and her observations. Soon, Lisa began experimenting with changes in in- structional practices (trying out new technical skills), and making field notes of her observations; she used these notes to validate her successes and help crystal- lize her concerns. As trust and respect developed among the participants, Lisa began sharing what troubled her about her literacy practices-and sup- porting her colleagues’ efforts to understand their own concerns. As her confidence in her newly developing instructional skills grew, Lisa used her journal to iden- tify ongoing questions and concerns for investigation.

Views Teachers As Intellectuals, Engaged in the Pursuit of Answers to Genuine Questions, Problems, and Curiosities. Literacy reform initiatives call for professional develop- ment that helps teachers consider serious intellectual content (Shaker, 1996). They challenge educators to investigate, experiment, consult, and consider outcomes- to take on a stance of critique and inquiry toward practice (Ball, 1996). Teachers must use an inquiry and problem- solving paradigm, one that results in their producing new knowledge, rather than a training paradigm that results in their consuming knowledge.

Supportive professional development provides par- ticipants with opportunities to reconsider their deeply held assumptions about best literacy practice, to debate new ideas, and to struggle with how to substitute old practices with the new ideas. Rather than providing participants with information on how to implement or adopt a new idea in their classroom, professional devel- opment that supports a critique and inquiry stance assists participants’ own creation of appropriate solu- tions. Such professional development engages teach- ers in generating answers to their questions for their

particular contexts. It also notes the similarities be- tween students’ and teachers’ learning styles:

People learn best through active involvement and through thinking about and becoming articulate about what they have learned. Processes, practices, and policies built on this view of learning are at the heart of a more expanded view of teacher development that encourages teachers to involve themselves as learners-in much the same way as they wish their stu- dents would. (Lieberman, 1995, p. 592)

In this professional development experience, Lisa, her colleagues, and the seminar leaders considered which questions they deemed important: What themes are central to the implementation of a quality literacy program that provides students with opportunities to engage in the construction of meaning and the produc- tion of texts? What constitutes quality reading and writing practices? How do we know whether students are becoming better readers, writers, speakers, and listeners? What should “count“ as evidence of their learning?

Together, Lisa and the other participants read, dis- cussed, consulted with each other, experimented, and ultimately constructed their knowledge. Individu- ally, they considered what was ”right” for their own classrooms. After much discussion, reading, consider- ing, reconsidering, and reflecting, Lisa decided the following themes should be central to her literacy program: student choice and decision-making, stu- dent goal-setting and self-evaluation, student collabo- ration, authenticity (or real reading and real writing), grouping based on students’ needs to help students meet short-term goals (with opportunities to regroup for other purposes), a focus on individual learners, and the idea of teacher as coach and model.

Lisa wondered, ”Where do I begin? It’s November. Can I make changes now? What will my children think? Will they be confused?” She decided to begin the year again with procedural ”mini-lessons.” She would teach-or reteach-her students how to select books to read (“How can you figure out if a book is ’just right’ for you?”), how to respond to literature, how to confer with each other, how to confer with her, how to select a topic to write about, and how to find and return the supplies from the writing center. She was ready.

Now, her students choose the books they read and choose the topic they write about. ”Choice makes learning meaningful, and my students feel I respect them when I allow them to decide some things for themselves,” Lisa says. ”They set goals for themselves and assess how close they come to meeting their goals. They share their work with each other. They use each other as peer experts to make their individual work better. They read real books. They write various kinds

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of texts.” Lisa meets with individual students to guide and facilitate each child’s literacy development. She models reading and writing for her students, sharing pieces she is writing or has written, as well as books she is reading. She holds conferences with her students- listening to them read, responding to their texts, and teaching skills in context.

Provides for Participants’ Meaningful Engagement. We believe that there is an alternative to the shallow, frag- mented content and passive teacher roles so often found in the training model of professional development (Little, 1993). Teachers do not become meaningfully engaged simply by participating in ”hands-on” activi- ties as part of scripted workshops, however. Rather, teachers must be engaged-by themselves or with col- leagues-by ideas and materials that speak to their interests, and by the intellectual pursuit of solutions to real-life classroom problems. The goal should be teach- ers’ avid, rather than passive, participation.

This does not mean a prohibition on directive activi- ties-or the elimination of all modeling. Some research (e.g., Firestone & Pennell, 1997) suggests that teachers benefit from directed experiences that model the non- traditional teaching approaches of literacy reform, and that offer participants useful teaching techniques. The current reforms in literacy are, after all, asking teachers to do what many have never experienced or perhaps even observed. Professional development leaders who model the literacy practices provide a needed image of literacy reform.

The participants’ investigations during the seminar were facilitated by a leadership group, made up of two classroom teachers and two university faculty mem- bers. Each seminar meeting time was typically divided into four segments: discussion of readings, sharing of success stories or problems, leader or participant mod- eling of a research-supported instructional strategy, and discussions of teacher-researcher investigations.

One kind of model is a print-rich literacy environ- ment. Therefore, the leaders decided, initially, that the seminars would be held in one of the two lead teachers’ classrooms. The teachers sat in the classroom’s group- sharing area among more than 1,000 children’s trade books; among the puppets and other tools for story retellings; beneath the posters urging children to read; near the children’s response journals and activities; and not far from the writing center with its writing tools, resources, different kinds of paper, and children’s writ- ing folders. The context convinced Lisa that her own classroom housed only the beginnings of a quality literacy environment. Later in the year, Lisa invited the participants to meet in her classroom to view her lit- eracy-enhanced environment-complete with snacks made and messages left by her students.

When the lead teachers or the participants demon-

strated an instructional strategy, the teachers played the role of their students, which proved to be illustra- tive. Teaching decoding skills through the reading of a daily poem, and then creating class and individual poem books, modeled the whole-to-parts concept as well as the concept of teaching skills in context. Teach- ing about writing great leads by sharing models from personal writing and quality children’s literature ex- emplified how to provide direct writing instruction.

Develops CoZZegiaZ Relationships. In quality profes- sional development experiences, teams of profession- als work collaboratively to develop curriculum, experiment, solve real problems, reflect on pedagogy, and engage in reciprocal observation and feedback (LeMahieu, Roy, & FOSS, n.d.; Smylie, 1996). The par- ticipants need colleagues with whom to focus on the problems of teaching and learning, to figure out how to deal with this specific subject matter, to plan lessons and examine the results, and to engage in ongoing experimentation aimed at specific improvements (Shanker, 1996). The participants should feel free to address some of the problems of teaching through open exchanges. In the end, the participants should view their newfound knowledge as having been jointly con- structed, not delivered whole by the leaders (Pollard, Broadfoot, Croll, Osborn, & Abbott, 1994). Margaret Olson (1997) details how such collaborative relation- ships work as professional development:

Through the opportunity for conversation we can hear a variety of views and experiences [that] may awaken us to new ways to story our experience. Conversation is not a process of telling what we know in a definitive sense, but rather a collaborative endeavor where each participant brings mean- ing and questions to the conversation. As stories are told, given back, and retold, knowledge communities develop in which knowledge is constructed in transactions between individuals. (p. 22)

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For the literacy seminar, a team of professionals worked together on issues that had direct application to their teaching and their students. The teachers were not forced to fumble around by themselves to get answers. They collectively considered their practices. As each participant told her story, the group searched for common ground, seeking to identify shared central themes. Whether or not they were talking to someone who taught the same grade level, the teachers struggled to "own" their new literacy knowledge and understand what worked-and what did not-in their classrooms, and why. This new sense of literacy life, and the ability to measure improvements made by themselves and their students, challenged, frustrated, and excited them. "Thank goodness I had others to collaborate with," Lisa enthused.

Encourages Rejection. Participants must have time to analyze and reflect, with opportunities to absorb new information and perspectives, as well as criticism and guidance. Professional development should not at- tempt to deliver practices that will be uncritically rep- licated in the classroom or school. They should challenge, enhance, and make connections to partici- pants' current practice. This creates a cycle of experi- ence and reflection that promotes continuous improvement and offers the benefits of individual and collaborative inquiry, such as action and teacher re- search (LeMahieu, Roy, & Foss, nd.; Smylie, 1996).

The inservice teacher education literature contains numerous descriptions of reflective thinking as a cru- cial process for teacher professional growth. Exactly what teachers should focus on in their reflections was unclear then and continues to be unclear today. What is important is that teachers need time, space, and encouragement to reflect on teaching in ways that facilitate their learning-by talking with others, by keeping a journal, and by engaging in action research.

Whatever technique for or kind of reflection is used, the key remains the need to effect change through the day-to-day action of empowered individuals. This principle of change underlies reflective practice:

Behavior change occurs . . . when individuals discover a problem they accept as theirs. Through the process of obser- vation and reflections, individuals become more sensitive to and more aware of their habitual patterns of behavior, the assumptions that shape their behavior, and the impact of their actions. . . . A clearly defined problem, an apparent gap between the reality and the ideal, becomes an incentive for personal earning-an incentive to examine and modify the nature of professional practice and an incentive to try new ways. (Osterman & Kottkamp, 1993, p. 16).

Central to professional development that encourages reflection is the belief that change begins not by teachers

Examplesfroni Lisa's journal eittries Figure 2

learning a new idea from an expert, but rather by teachers recopzing that something is not right in their own profes- sional practice. Consequently, a sigruficant component of such professional development is self-initiation.

Lisa learned to study her instruction in her class- room. She began to think about the lesson or day in terms of what she learned. "I ask myself, 'What worked today? Did I do anything differently than I had planned? Why?' " She recorded her thinking on Post-it notes, which she attached to the lesson plan or to the page in her plan book. She cautions, however, that "what appeared to work before isn't always guaranteed to work again, because my students are different each year. But I am discovering practices and techniques that are generally more effective than others-for me, this year, with these students."

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Lisa also recorded her thinking in a journal, and brought her journal with her to the seminar meetings. She wrote in her journal when she was ”puzzled by something, or stuck on how to incorporate a certain aspect of the workshop approach.” One time she wrote about how hard it was to find sharing time in every day; another time she wrote about her concern about not being able to meet every child, every day, for teacher- student conferences. Sorting out the dilemmas in her journal entries and talking with her seminar colleagues led Lisa to ask her students to share with a partner or to share with others at their table rather than having a whole group share. But Lisa did not write in her journal only when she was having difficulties; she also wrote when she was proud of something. For example, she wrote about students’ success at discussing the books they were reading. Successes helped her see which aspects of her teaching were ”working well.” And the journal writings helped her see that the ideas and theories she ”reads about in books really can work” in her classroom! ”Sometimes I reread my positive jour- nal entries to remind me of the good things my students and I have done,” Lisa says. She thought this helped keep her ”perspective in the right place.” Lisa has found that she really enjoys writing in a journal. Writ- ing helped her think of many ideas to make her teach- ing better. “Using a reflective journal has been good. It allows me the time to think about what I am doing in my teaching practice and to see how far I have come.” Rereading her journal helps her realize that she is a ”much better reading and writing teacher.”

So what did Lisa feel she learned, through her partici- pation in this seminar, about herself and her teaching? Lisa elaborates, convinced that she overlooked many important discoveries:

”I need to follow my children’s lead more. I don’t have to follow my lesson plans exactly. A student may ask a question that prompts me to take the lesson in a different direction than I had planned, or to use a different technique. It’s fine when this happens.”

e ”Things won’t always go well. That’s okay. r-

I can attempt to figure out why and revise.” I ”I want my shtdents to have lots of choices.

However, I can set limits and give structure where needed.”

“I need to make the ’why of learning’ evi- dent to my students. Doing this is important because it helps students develop a positive mind- set for what they are doing.”

“Collaborating with other people results in better teaching than I could have done alone. It’s

just like with my students; they learn better by working with other people, and so do I.”

”Having other teachers observe my teaching is almost as scary as having an administrator do it. It’s hard to have a peer, or even a friend, comment on what I’m doing. However, getting feedback helps to identify the things I need to consider. I learned that it helps to have one or two specific areas to work on at a time, and to concentrate on getting feedback on those areas.”

”When presented with new ideas (like allowing for more student choice), I have to start small and work my way up. This is the best way to improve my teaching.”

“My students’ evaluations can be some of the most honest ones I receive. They also learn through my example [of requesting their feedback] to seek feed- back of their work and to collaborate with others when they want to improve on what they’re doing.”

She continues, ”One time that I asked for student feedback was

when I was having trouble making the transition from teacher-assigned books to self-selected ones, especially in the way it impacted our discussion group. I asked the students for their ideas, and then I analyzed their responses. I learned some valuable information. They enjoyed many things about the discussion circles, but they wanted more time, smaller groups, and a chance to work with other people sometimes. (I was assigning children to groups.) They also came up with some good discussion questions, which showed me they had the idea of what it was all about. I decided to go ahead and try discussions where everyone was reading a different book. They worked very well!”

Lisa concludes: “Studying instruction is something I do often in my

classroom. From revising my own lessons, to writing in my journal, to responding to my principal’s evalu- ations, to listening to my students’ feedback, I am constantly thinking and rethinking what I do and trying to make it better.”

Lisa‘s request for specific feedback. Figure 3

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I

Professional development should: focus on a single subject focus on participants’ needs be ongoing and sustained engage participants in the pursuit of answers to genuine questions, problems, and curiosities provide for participants’ meaningful engagement help participants develop collegial relationships encourage participants to reflect on their teaching.

Figure 4

These tenets are offered not as a menu-pick a little of this and some of that-but rather as a full course (summarized in Figure 4). All of these components are necessary if we are to achieve ambitious literacy re- form efforts. Yet, we remind readers that these are merely beliefs about what makes for quality profes- sional development.

For literacy reform efforts-any reform efforts-to succeed, teachers must have access to quality profes- sional development. ”Quality” is the challenge. We must make a ”fit” between the reform and the profes- sional development. While we know how to ”train” teachers well, the training paradigm built on knowl- edge consumption is a bad ”fit” with the task of reform. Far fewer professional development experiences ex- hibit the tenets identified in this article-with inquiry- and problem-based, collaborative experiences. Lisa’s words are suggestive of the power of professional development experiences that exhibit these tenets: ”This professional development experience did more than just give me knowledge and skills for teaching the state curriculum standards. It gave me the tools and framework for questioning what I do, pinpointing my areas of need, defining a focus for my improvement, and attaining my goals. I have developed habits of reflecting on my work that will stay with me through- out my career. Therefore, I have not only helped my current students achieve more in language arts, I have helped future classes by learning skills I can apply to any area of instruction.”

Are we willing to engage in professional develop- ment that allow teachers to examine their existing practices and invent new ones, even if the process is messy and contentious? Are we willing, as Mary Ann Smith (1996, p. 692) suggests we must be, to believe in teachers as being ”our best resource and our best hope to rethink and reshape education for the next century”?

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