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The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (1996) argues that good teaching is more important than ever before in our nation's history. Due to sweeping economic changes, today's world has little room for youth who cannot read, write, and compute proficiently; who cannot find and use resources; who cannot frame and solve problems with other people; and who cannot continually learn new technologies and occupations. The Commission, as well as other reform advocates, has argued for the "re-invention" of inservice professional development as a major strategy for improving student learning. The United States Department of Education has recently funded projects to create or expand highly effective and replicable models of inservice professional development programs that prepare and enhance the teachers' ability to use contextual teaching and learning strategies, including integrating academic and vocational education. Contextual teaching and learning are defined as strategies that focus on students as active learners and provide a wide range of learning opportunities, leading students to solve complex, real-world problems.

The Center on Education and Work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has received one of three U.S. Department of Education contracts in the inservice category, and has designed a project called TeachNET.  TeachNET is particularly relevant for districts, school partnerships, and consortia of educational institutions in urban and rural settings interested in enhancing inservice professional development programs by: (a) providing teachers with opportunities to participate in workplace/community learning experiences, and (b) assisting them in applying what they learned to instructional practices. TeachNET seeks to establish a network of Regional Cluster Teams each coordinated by a local Professional Development Provider Organization committed to enhancing local capacity for providing professional development opportunities that connect workplace/community learning and contextualized instructional practices.

What are the TeachNET Goals?

TeachNET began October 1998 and is anticipated to continue through September 2001. The goals of the project are to:

  • Establish a national network of Regional Cluster Teams, including schools and professional development providers, committed to connecting professional development and contextual teaching and learning for educators (see box).
  • Demonstrate and document a model for inservice professional development that connects
    workplace/community applications and contextual teaching and learning.
  • Document the impact of project participation on the professional development of participants and on contextualized teaching and learning practices.
  • Conduct a national dissemination initiative to ensure that the model and supporting framework are widely used.
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