"A tool box overflowing with ideas that will help every staff developer craft a school culture hospitable to adult and student learning." —Roland S. Barth, Author, Lessons Learned "The book speaks to many audiences, including instructional coaches, PLC leaders, action researchers and group leaders, and university professors working with action researchers and PLCs." —Gail Ritchie, Coleader, Teacher Researcher Network Fairfax County Public Schools, VA "A terrific resource for connecting teacher networks and action research to create powerful professional development opportunities. This book is a joy to read." —Ellen Meyers, Senior Vice President Teachers Network Powerful tools for facilitating teachers′ professional development and optimizing school improvement efforts! Professional learning communities (PLCs) and action research are popular and proven frameworks for professional development. While both can greatly improve teaching and learning, few resources have combined the two practices into one coherent approach. The Reflective Educator′s Guide to Professional Development provides educators with strategies, activities, and tools to develop inquiry-oriented PLCs. Nationally known school reform experts Nancy Fichtman Dana and Diane Yendol-Hoppey cover the ten essential elements of a healthy PLC, provide case studies of actual inquiry-based PLCs, and present lessons learned to help good coaches become great coaches. With this step-by-step guide, readers will be able to: Organize, assess, and maintain high-functioning, inquiry-oriented PLCs Facilitate the development of study questions Establish the trust and collective commitment necessary for successful action research Enable PLC members to develop, analyze, and share research results Lead successful renewal and reform efforts By combining two powerful training practices, coaches, workshop leaders, and staff developers can ensure continuous, robust school-based professional development.

This how-to guide to teacher research and inquiry takes educators from 'Where do I Begin?' through publishing results, with detailed attention to every step in between. It covers questioning, sharing insights and processes, research methods, analysing data, developing reports, and communicating findings to the ecucational community.

Reflective Practice for Professional Development provides an accessible introduction to the theory and practice of reflection. In ten concise chapters it explores how reflecting on experiences can be used for professional development and help progress knowledge and skills. Using scenarios, questions and stories, the reader is encouraged to apply the content to their own context, demonstrating the importance of reflection in helping us to make sense as well as make the most of our professional experience. Exploring key themes such as the importance of criticality, models of reflection and connections between thought, language and actions, it considers the ways in which reflection can widen perspectives, generate deeper understanding of professional challenges and enhance creativity. Full of practical tools and approaches for enriching and recording reflections, this insightful book aims to simplify reflective practice for teachers. It is an ideal guide for anyone who needs to build reflection into their practice or their studies.

Delivers specific guidelines for implementing human caring within teaching practices along with a wealth of examples Grounded in the belief that translating caring science within teaching practices will humanize nursing education, this important book emphasizes the ways in which teachers can translate Human Caring and Caritas in order to include strategies for establishing authentic caring pedagogical relationships with their students. It aims to strengthen Human Caring as the basis for humanitarian teaching and to infuse the learning environment with caring practices for both students and teachers. The work provides an antidote for the continuous dominant biomedical and behavioral paradigm in nursing education. It includes specific guidelines for implementing Human Caring ethics, ontology, and epistemology throughout the teaching-learning community and describes how to translate caring values and assumptions into living Caritas as the nurse teachers’ moral ideal and praxis of authentic caring pedagogical relationships. Pragmatic examples provided by administrators, teachers, and students illustrate the value of a humanitarian caring science paradigm for nursing education and caring praxis. Key Features: Delivers an internationally renowned scholars’ perspective on teaching grounded in Human Caring Includes exemplars of educators’ lived teaching experiences guided by their caring pedagogical praxis Provides examples of students’ lived learning experiences within a caring- teaching environment Offers reflective practice exercises for nurse teachers to enhance their caring pedagogical relationships with students Provides guided caring artistic activities to promote ways of knowing, doing, being, and becoming in nursing education

"This guide provides a comprehensive toolkit for the complex work of field instruction, including mentoring approaches; conversation stems; conferencing techniques; lesson debriefing questions; understandings of programmatic goals; observation, assessment, and feedback methods; and more. Chapters are accessibly written and filled with concrete examples, tips, worksheets, and activities"--

This reference tool for mastering reflective practice and initiating it in your school offers ideas for reflective practice alone, with partners, in small groups, and schoolwide.

This book provides specific strategies for facilitating reflective practice and is the first to provide a practical guide to professional development and school reform from this standpoint. The authors show how reflective practice provides powerful strategies to help professionals learn from their experiences, improve themselves, and thus improve schools and education. Applications in every area of professional development and school reform are presented.