Chapter 2: Professional Development Schools: History, Development and Current Research

A professional development school (PDS) is a collaboration between a school (including its teachers, administrators, staff, students, and supporting community), that school’s system or district, and a postsecondary teacher-preparation institution—a college or university providing pre-service and in-service training to individuals within the school. By working together, all partners supporting the professional development school hope to create enriching academic experiences for students, to provide supportive, professional development for teachers, and to assess the effectiveness of instructional practices.

Professional development schools as they are implemented today emerged out of the historical context of education in the United States. Contemporary professional development schools have their origin in John Dewey’s (1896) laboratory schools on the University of Chicago campus. Dewey’s schools provided pre-service teachers the opportunity to work in a classroom environment with master teachers, who modeled progressive instructional techniques. The schools also provided the opportunity to evaluate and document teaching methods to determine which methods work best with students (Campoy, 2000). These interests in collaborative teaching training and research for instructional improvement are characteristics of today’s professional development schools, but the laboratory schools and professional development schools differ in an important way: Dewey’s laboratory schools were administered by the university, but a contemporary professional development school is administered by an equitable partnership of the participating school, system, and university.