Title: NCSALL: How Teachers Change
Headings: How Teachers Change
How Teachers Change
What will lead to change that most benefits student learning?
Change Hurts
Voluntary Change
Laissez Faire?
Vision of Teachers
Training Model
Reflective, Collaborative Models
Community of Practice
Conclusion
Endnotes
References
About the Author

Content: Teachers may, however, make decisions about change that are spur-of-the-moment and based on unwarranted assumptions. Without examining the beliefs underlying a sense of what does or does not work, teachers may perpetuate practices based on questionable assumptions and beliefs. This suggests that some direction would be helpful. And, the question arises: do learners benefit from teachers acting alone, making changes as they see fit within the confines of their classrooms? If all teachers make decisions autonomously, the schooling of an individual student could be quite incoherent and ineffective. This, too, suggests that help, direction, or encouragement provided to staff rather than to individuals could be necessary to promote change that is valuable to the learner. I will come back to this later. Vision of Teachers
Over the course of this century, our concept of teaching has shifted from an industrial model teachers replicating a specific set of instructional tasks to a "complex, dynamic, interactive, intellectual activity" (Smylie & Conyers, 1991, p. 13). This shift occurred for many reasons, including a change to a much more diverse student body (Devany & Sykes, 1988) and changes in our economy.