ABSTRACT
Our group has met informally and presented our research at conferences for many years. We chose 2001 as an occasion to reflect on our professional development over the past five years. We also conducted our action research as a response to our state’s new rules for teacher licensure, mandating five-year professional development plans (Wisconsin DPI 2000). As recent reviews of changes in teacher preparation and licensure suggest, teaching careers are varied, complex and not easily summarized in uniform standards, plans and portfolios (Cochran-Smith and Fries 2001; DarlingHammond 2001; Peske et al. 2001). In our research, we asked about how we have learned to teach and, by implication, how our careers would have been assessed according to current and proposed standards for teaching. We gathered data, discussed and wrote about the following thematic questions:
• Professional Development: What route, if any, did we follow in learning about teaching over the past five or more years? Were there benchmarks by which we assessed our goals and accomplishments?
