Efficacy of Professional Development Schools in Developing Countries: Panama

Overview & Synopsis

This article attempts to describe the creation and implementation of the first Professional Development School (PDS) model of teacher education in Panama. The authors set the context within brief histories of international education and PDSs and provide operational definitions of the critical terminology. To be sure, the scope and scale of the project was small, and although the implementation met some criteria for PDS models, it exhibited deficiencies in others. Nonetheless, the narrative reveals distinct local impacts, and suggests possibilities for international collaboration for the purpose of developing and implementing teacher education programs.