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By: Cole, Karen A.

Project-Based Teacher Partnerships is a model for teacher professional development to help teachers doing technology-supported project-based learning in the Challenge 2000 Multimedia Project. Experienced teachers team with a small number of less-experienced teachers to form a partnership. The partnership plans a project that the teachers will execute together in all the partners' classrooms. The partnership submits a project proposal to Challenge 2000, and approved proposals are eligible for equipment and software grants and stipends. The partnership model was evaluated using four data sources: a survey of participating teachers; observation of partnership meetings; teacher interviews; and classroom observations. There were three sets of findings. The first set indicated that the model was successful in helping teachers develop in their capacity to use technology and more generally as teachers; evaluation data showed that the model is effective in building technology, pedagogy, and leadership skills and collaboration practices that support teacher learning. The second set provided insight into the aspects of the model that were crucial to its success, including: the application process; focus on a project; self-selected, voluntary, local partners; flexibility; and multimedia fairs. The third set related to connections between the partnership model and other kinds of teacher professional development and support. (MES)