Chapter 18: Affirmation and Change: Assessing the Impact of the Professional Development School on Mentors’ Classroom Practice

In this paper we investigate the extent to which teachers report actually changing their practice as a result of their involvement in a school-university partnership that has evolved into a professional development school (PDS). We primarily address changes in teachers’ knowledge, skills, and dispositions as a means for analyzing the impact that our partnership is having on veteran classroom teachers. We report the results of a comprehensive survey focused on teachers’ thinking and practices. We also report more specific changes and their origins by focusing on selected mentors and the way in which their PDS involvement changed their approach to teaching science.