In-service teacher professional development is central to most empirical conceptions of educational quality. As the techniques and strategies for educational reform have spread rapidly throughout the world, teacher professional development practices have been borrowed across borders. It is important to study the global sharing of information on teacher professional development. Global Perspectives on Teacher Performance Improvement examines the implementation of proven, high quality teacher professional development practices in unique environments around the world. It further explains the power of a globally connected community of teacher quality improvement. Covering topics such as mentoring programs, education technology, and education workforce, this book is an essential resource for educational administration and faculty, pre-service teachers, the public education sector, government officials, educators of both K-12 and higher education, researchers, and academicians.

Amidst the contentious debates about teacher effectiveness, most people believe that unions, education colleges, charter networks, consulting agencies, textbook publishers, test producers, professional associations, teachers, and researchers disagree with one another about the most essential school reforms. Though all these groups do certainly have their own interests and perspectives, they also all desire to see that students are better prepared for a competitive world. What if all these groups worked together for that very goal? What would happen if all reform work in PK-12 education centered on the improvement of teaching? Would teachers be treated differently? Would they respond to their work in more innovative ways? Would it change the quality of education that children in the United States receive? Six Degrees of School Improvement: Empowering a New Profession of Teaching provides glimpses of this realistic approach to American education reform with an eye toward what the system might look like in one to two generations from now. The book makes a solid case for "collaborative professionalism," a system that binds professionals together under a common set of understandings about the ways in which children and adolescents learn content knowledge and acquire skills. It argues that popular approaches to school improvement circumvent teachers and thus further de-skill and disempower the very people responsible for student learning in classrooms. Most importantly, the book provides very clear guidance on building a system of collaborative professionalism among teachers.

Knowledge Mobility is the New Internationalization: Guiding Educational Globalization One Educator at a Time shows how university-based faculties of education in both developed and developing countries can work together toward professional standards that are based on globally recognized evidence and applied in culturally appropriate, and thus sustainable, ways throughout the world. The last half century of international educational development has generated many positive accomplishments, including school access expansion and curriculum quality improvement. However, it has not produced sustainable or comprehensive results, mainly because key institutions and local culture are frequently ignored. Simultaneous to the production of these mixed results in developing countries, education scholars and faculties of education in wealthier countries have pursued an agenda of professionalization of the educational occupations-through higher qualification requirements, more stringent entry standards, and explicit evidence to guide practice. Furthermore, higher education internationalization has increased its scope and expanded its volume. Yet in these three areas-educational development, educational professionalization, and higher education internationalization-there has rarely been any convergence. This book makes a case for this vital union.

Creating Engagement between Schools and their Communities: Lessons from Educational Leaders addresses how educational leaders have made efforts to reconnect their schools to their communities and the varied goals they achieved. The contributors of this book are educational leaders who have stayed committed to their neighborhoods and who have seen the moral imperative to provide equal opportunity to all students. This book shares their experiences, particularly looking at community-based schools in urban, impoverished, or immigrant communities-communities that often are disconnected from the political and economic centers of the country.

Discover how social networks can foster learning communities and promote school improvement! Social networks reflect the usually invisible relationships that control the power and flow of information within a school. This resource for school leaders examines types of networks-related to tasks, friendships, power, and culture-and provides tools for maximizing networks' positive schoolwide influence. You will find: - Samples of social network maps that illustrate the relationships among players in various types of networks - Steps for developing your own social network maps using interviews, surveys, and data analysis - Strategies and practical advice for managing social networks in support of school goals

Across the globe, American-style and liberal arts universities are being established. From the first, the American University of Beirut, established in 1866, to the liberal arts institutions being established in Saudi Arabia, Ghana, and elsewhere in the twenty-first century, there is a clear sense of the global desire for the American approach to higher education as a way of counteracting traditional, more narrowly defined university educations. However, these universities operate in a distinctive dynamic that must learn to bridge one culture with another, and leadership of such institutions must by its nature focus on such complexities and tensions. Throughout the chapters of this book, this unique element of these universities will be better understood through the stories and experiences as presented by their presidents, provosts, and other academic leaders.

In-service teacher professional development is central to most empirical conceptions of educational quality. As the techniques and strategies for educational reform have spread rapidly throughout the world, teacher professional development practices have been borrowed across borders. It is important to study the global sharing of information on teacher professional development. Global Perspectives on Teacher Performance Improvement examines the implementation of proven, high quality teacher professional development practices in unique environments around the world. It further explains the power of a globally connected community of teacher quality improvement. Covering topics such as mentoring programs, education technology, and education workforce, this book is an essential resource for educational administration and faculty, pre-service teachers, the public education sector, government officials, educators of both K-12 and higher education, researchers, and academicians.

Amidst the contentious debates about teacher effectiveness, most people believe that unions, education colleges, charter networks, consulting agencies, textbook publishers, test producers, professional associations, teachers, and researchers disagree with one another about the most essential school reforms. Though all thesegroups do certainly have their own interests and perspectives, they also all desire to see that students are betterprepared for a competitive world. What if all these groups worked together for that very goal? What wouldhappen if all reform work in PK-12 education centered on the improvement of teaching? Would teachers betreated differently? Would they respond to their work in more innovative ways? Would it change the quality ofeducation that children in the United States receive?Six Degrees of School Improvement: Empowering a New Profession of Teaching provides glimpses of thisrealistic approach to American education reform with an eye toward what the system might look like in one totwo generations from now. The book makes a solid case for "collaborative professionalism," a system thatbinds professionals together under a common set of understandings about the ways in which children and adolescents learn content knowledge andacquire skills. It argues that popular approaches to school improvement circumvent teachers and thus further de-skill and disempower the very peopleresponsible for student learning in classrooms. Most importantly, the book provides very clear guidance on building a system of collaborative professionalismamong teachers.

Creating Engagement between Schools and their Communities: Lessons from Educational Leaders addresses how educational leaders have made efforts to reconnect their schools to their communities and the varied goals they achieved. The contributors of this book are educational leaders who have stayed committed to their neighborhoods and who have seen the moral imperative to provide equal opportunity to all students. This book shares their experiences, particularly looking at community-based schools in urban, impoverished, or immigrant communities-communities that often are disconnected from the political and economic centers of the country.

Discover how social networks can foster learning communities and promote school improvement! Social networks reflect the usually invisible relationships that control the power and flow of information within a school. This resource for school leaders examines types of networks-related to tasks, friendships, power, and culture-and provides tools for maximizing networks' positive schoolwide influence. You will find: - Samples of social network maps that illustrate the relationships among players in various types of networks - Steps for developing your own social network maps using interviews, surveys, and data analysis - Strategies and practical advice for managing social networks in support of school goals