Typically, professional development has been done by sending teachers off to workshops and classes, but the flaw in that plan is that even if the teacher is transformed in the process, he or she returns to an unchanged school and soon becomes frustrated and discouraged. . . . Professional development to me means investing in teachers' capacity to go on learning throughout their careers.
School reforms come and go, but the success of any reform depends on teachers themselves.
With a colleague, she is developing a new model of professional development for classroom teachers which emphasizes the importance of peer interaction and involvement and seeks to lessen the feelings of intellectual isolation that come with traditional teaching methodologies. The goal of this model is to help make the profession more intellectually stimulating thereby retaining and attracting good teachers. Dr. Grossman is also involved with understanding what tools teachers use to construct and carry out their teaching practices.