IN THE COMPANY OF COLLEAGUES - AN INTERIM-REPORT ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF A COMMUNITY OF TEACHER LEARNERS

This article reports on a professional development project that sought to establish a community of learners among high school teachers. Teac hers from the English and history departments at a large urban high sc hool met twice a month for two-and-a-half years. Project activities in cluded reading and discussing pieces of fiction and history, developin g an interdisciplinary humanities curriculum, and video-taping and vie wing classroom instruction. Initial findings point to an enhanced coll egiality among faculty within and across departments; reduced teacher isolation; and the development of an intellectual community for teache rs within the high school. However, teachers at different points in th eir career trajectory were differentially affected by this project. Ba sed on our preliminary findings, we offer implications for teacher ind uction and socialization, and on-going professional development. (C) 1 998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.