Other threats to improving professional development in the OST field are scarce resources, unstable funding, limited training opportunities and a lack of affordable transportation to training sites (Bowie and Bronte-Tinkew 2006).
We recently surveyed 1,600 trustees to find why people become trustees and the top reason was to 'give something back' (55%), second to gain new skills and improve professional development (33%), and third because they were committed to a charity's cause (30%).
As American educators try to change the culture of teaching from a solo enterprise with the teacher as information disseminator to a more collaborative and reflective process, they are looking to Japan for ideas on improving professional development opportunities for teachers.
MS. BOUNDY: Money is obviously relevant to capacity building -- for example, improving professional development for teachers.
Federal education officials said the program would seek to bring together state and district officials, union leaders, teachers and other educators to address a range of issues, among them tightening tenure rules, increasing salaries and improving professional development.
The Academy for Educational Development AED Center for Youth Development and Policy Researchch was a leading player in the Stronger Staff-Stronger Youth initiative that had the goal of improving professional development for youth workers (Astroth et al. 2004).
Benefits can be mapped to improved professional skills, and by inference improved patient care, and to measurable professional development outcomes.
"This is an important report," says Gerry Wheeler, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, "because it hits on two key points: the need to pare down the number of requirements in the current standards, and the need to offer better professional development to improve teacher content knowledge.
Use mobiles to teach teachers: After the mobile learning week at Unesco, I came out very impressed by the models using technology as a tool to improve the professional development of teachers.
Unlike the use of self-reported data in higher education for examination or evaluation purposes, learners are motivated to share their learning and behavioral data to improve their professional development and so to enhance their career advancement".
