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Creating learning communities to meet teachers' needs in professional development

Abstract Professional development is an essential component of retaining high quality teachers. Current US legislation, as stated in No Child Left Behind, emphasises this premise. Although professional development opportunities have been abundant for decades, a closer look at standards and criteria for effective professional development is essential in order to increase the possibility of programing opportunities that will truly impact teacher behaviors. According to the National Staff Development Council, effective professional development places teachers into learning communities. This can be a challenge to professional development center administrators, who often program single-session workshops for teachers from different school systems as the primary mode of delivery or instruction, minimising the opportunities for collaboration among a cohort. The purpose of this study is to determine instructional preferences of teachers, taking into account teaching experience and grade level, and suggest methods for placing teachers into learning communities by these preferences in order to meet current standards of professional development