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Non-tenure track faculty vary greatly in terms of their ranks, teaching abilities, workloads, and motivational levels and have unique professional development needs. In response, universities are differentiating professional development for these professors. This case study examined an emerging research university's efforts to provide a faculty learning community (FLC) for its non-tenure track professors. Data were collected during an academic year from interviews with the participants, evaluations completed by the participants after the meetings, and the facilitators' curricular materials. The participants learned useful instructional strategies and felt more connected to their colleagues, more supported by the university, and more confident in their teaching. The findings suggest that FLCs are a viable method of professional development for non-tenure track faculty.

This qualitative case study chronicled the efforts of a group of foreign language middle school teachers as they developed professional portfolios. The study was exploratory in nature and sought to investigate what happens when teachers build a professional portfolio as an alternative to a state appraisal system. The study found that the portfolios contained very little evidence of language teaching. The teachers seemed to have had difficulty making distinctions between goal setting and instruction modifications. This confusion, together with a lack of peer collaboration, resulted in a poor selection of artifacts. For example, there was very little evidence of students' work and of professional activities. The artifacts focused more on satisfying recent state legislation emphasizing textbook completion and intervention methods. The findings point to the importance of administrative and collegial support for successful professional portfolio development.