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Teacher education faculty at the University of Houston are collaborating with the staff at five elementary schools on an action research project. The evolution of the project is traced from its origins in the professional preparation program through the second year of work with the leader ship teams of the schools. Five dimensions of professional learning are identified: leadership, temporal and physical structures, individuals, interpersonal relationships, and synergy. Data from the second year of the project are considered in terms of the five dimensions. Implications of the project for developing a more collaborative, action-oriented approach to teacher educa tion that can be carried through the novice years of teaching and beyond are discussed.

Despite the concerns of scholars in the field of instructional supervision, teacher evaluations continue to emphasize bureaucratic accountability and standardization. This article presents an argument for extending the Joint Committee on Standards_ Personnel Evaluation Standards to include standards related to the practice of supervision. The proposed standards call for differentiated procedures, collaborative identification of teachers_ professional development goals, multiple sources of data, emphasis on formative evaluation processes, consideration of both teachers_ personal development goals and school/program improvement goals, and the formalization of formative evaluation processes to achieve clear and shared understanding of their purpose and goals. These standards would align teacher evaluation with aspects of instructional supervision namely,clarification and shared understanding of the process and purpose of evaluations, interpretation of teaching performance in the context of teachers_ classrooms and professional values, and deliberation with teachers about how evaluation evidence depicts and informs their work.

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How can administrators balance the demands placed on them as supervisors to enact both managerial and professional values? To answer that question, this article explores the ways in which practicing school administrators uphold both managerial and professional values in their roles as instructional supervisors. The experiences of the administrators in this study offer valuable examples of the ways administrators practice supervision, and the ways in which that practice reflects both managerial and professional values.