Killing two birds with one stone: establishing professional communication among teachers

The purpose of this paper is to present ways of improving the quality of teaching in schools by enhancing professional development of teachers through providing professional communication among them and guiding them to work together, creating an environment in which they share experiences and support each other. Literature on the improvement of the teaching profession suggests that professional development is a necessity for better teaching and better schools. Therefore, supporting the continual development of teachers is important. However, in order to improve the quality of teaching, teachers should be given opportunities to grow professionally. Although traditional forms of professional development are quite common, they are widely criticized as being ineffective. On the other hand, reform type professional development activities provide teachers opportunities for professional development within a regular work day. Those types of professional development may be more likely to make connections with classroom teaching, and may also be easier to sustain over time. It can be concluded that, no single strategy will always work in every school, for every teacher, all of the time. Therefore, customization of the programs according to the needs of the program participants is needed. (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.