Designs for Learning

A New Architecture for Professional Development in Schools

`Paul Bredeson's application of architecture's principles of function, structure, and beauty to professional development policies and processes offers a unique and highly stimulating perspective sure to alter the thinking and work of researchers and practitioners alike. Creating artful designs for learning with structural integrity that appropriately meet the needs of educators and the students they teach should be the concern of professional developers at all levels' - Thomas R Guskey, Professor University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky

The purpose of this book is to propose a set of design principles for expanding and legitimizing learning opportunities for teachers and other professional educators in schools. Using the metaphor of architecture, the book proposes new designs for creating learning spaces for professional educators that challenge the boundaries, forms, and purposes of traditional design, delivery, content, and outcomes of professional development. Building on empirical research and exemplary practices, the book provides examples of professional learning expressed in this new architecture in its most natural setting-- in schools and classrooms. Formal and informal professional learning beyond the school are also included in the landscape for professional learning.