For a long time now, professional development or staff development has been fairly synonymous with "training." If teachers wanted to learn something, they went to a workshop - usually local or regional. As the National Staff Development Council reminds us, attending training sessions is only one of the ways that teachers can learn new things or improve skills AND it is not always the preferred or most effective method.

Some districts have learned that sending a small group of teachers to professional conferences (even those that may be held in a distant part of the US or in another country) can be a terrific professional development experience not only for the team attending, but also for those who they share with upon their return. Additionally, study groups are effective when small groups of teachers identify an area that they want to learn about or a problem they want to try to solve. These teachers then read and discuss important findings and identify elements that they will try in their own classrooms - reporting back to the study group about how things went.

Teachers who identify a publication such as Leading and Learning with Technology or The Kappan and read it each month sharing important articles and issues with colleagues will learn not only about ways they can improve their own practice but be able to identify resources for their fellow teachers. This activity can easily be written into an Individual Professional Development Plan or be structured as part of a responsibility to a team. Each team member might be responsible for reading and sharing from a different publication. There are several online publications that could be used.

A commitment to observing other classrooms and being observed in return over the course of several months or a year will yield many insights if there is a formal process for reflection and debriefing that accompanies each observation. Videotaping one's own classroom for later self-evaluation may be a viable variation of observation.

Meeting with a peer who has a skill he/she is willing to teach is another good alternative to attending traditional workshops. Being an active member of a professional listserv is another effective method of hearing new ideas and learning about new resources and strategies.

Some teachers learn best by seeing videos or by studying Web sites Others might like to take courses at a university or college. Still others may find that online classes/workshops or tutorials serve their needs.

This project suggests that Inquiry is an especially powerful professional development model that can encompass several of the others listed above. The main thing is that every effort is made to make a variety of methods available and even emphasize those that are good alternatives to traditional training. With the right structure, many of these alternate methods can become job-embedded.