Reiterated by the National Research Council (NRC), effective instruction is paramount in promoting students’ …show more content…
In “What Makes Professional Development Effective,” Garet (2001) argued that the more common approaches to PD, which include improving content knowledge and teaching practices, are becoming less popular and effective. PD that includes mentoring and study groups is becoming the norm for change in teacher practice (Garet, 2001; Ingersoll and Strong, 2011). In support of this argument, in “Teacher Professional Development: It’s Not an Event, It’s a Process,” Harwell (2003) argued that “professional development in which participants are given the opportunity to learn new classroom practices in similar contexts that those practices will be used is far more effective than more traditional methods of PD (Harwell, 2003, page3). Using a less process-oriented approach, Yoon et al. (2008) identified five specific criteria that constitute “high quality”