Critically Reflective Inquiry and Administrator Preparation: Problems and Possibilities

The Holmes Group's concept of professional development schools challenges conventional assumptions about how practitioners acquire knowledge of educational practice and how theory and practice are related. This article examines these different assumptions and their implications for administrator preparation in professional development schools by analyzing case studies of a problem-based administrative seminar and inquiry-oriented teacher education programs. To address the dilemmas revealed by the case studies in integrating theory and practice and reconceptualizing roles and relationships, the article discusses conditions for fostering collaborative inquiries into problems of practice by student administrators, university faculty, and cooperating school administrators.