Spencer Barnard

Transformational Teaching: the Key to Authentic School Improvement Spencer Barnard

Spencer Barnard, the father of five self-actualizing children, is a lifelong educator with experience as a classroom teacher, principal, district level administrator, educational publisher and college administrator. In this latter position he guided the development of an innovative master's degree program designed to advance the professional skills of K-12 teachers in the use of discovery-type learning experiences, enriched to accomodate students' differing learning styles and develop their higher order thinking skills. More than 1,000 in-service teachers have so far completed this program. Numerous classroom tests of discovery learning units developed by small teams of teachers in this program consistently showed improvements in students' attitudes and classroom performance levels. Barnard currently serves as Executive Director of the Discovery Learning Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the use of active learning methods in the nation's K-12 schools. He can be reached at this e-mail address: sbarnard@transteach.org.