View TV20 News Video: Teacher Inquiry Showcase

Teachers Teaching Teachers

More than 400 K-12 educators and prospective teachers across North Central Florida converge upon P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School in Gainesville every spring for the annual Teaching, Inquiry and Innovation Showcase, where they share with each other what they have learned individually about school improvement through the process of teacher research.

The showcase is staged by the Center for School Improvement at the UF College of Education. Co-sponsors are P.K. Yonge (UF’s laboratory school), the North East Florida Educational Consortium (NEFEC), and UF’s Lastinger Center for Learning.

Instead of traditional professional development relying on outside “experts,” this novel professional-development showcase features an emerging “inquiry-oriented” approach in which practicing educators and UF education students collaboratively assess their own teaching practices and share new knowledge among themselves. Essentially, it’s “teachers teaching teachers.” Education research suggests this collective networking approach generates more meaningful change and improvement in teaching and learning in classrooms—and allows schools to improve from within.

To view a television news report (from Gainesville’s ABC affiliate, WCJB TV-20 ) of this year’s Inquiry Showcase, held April 18-19, 2008, please click here.