What is the underlying purpose of Tapped In?
Teacher professional development (TPD) is a critical component of education reform and school restructuring. In practice, many exemplary TPD efforts find it difficult to maintain support for teachers after an institute or workshop, to encourage sustained interaction among participating teachers. Teachers have difficulty finding, and finding the time to particpate in, high-quality professional development activities. These issues have motivated several nationally-recognized K-12 TPD organizations and SRI to build a new vision of on-line professional development based on the premise that learning to implement reform-based teaching practices occurs most effectively (a) within an environment that supports rich collaborative discourse and (b) surrounded by a well-established and diverse community of practice engaged in the work of education reform. We envision a virtual place where teachers with diverse interests, skills, and backgrounds can meet and learn from one another; where teachers c
