Teaching is considered to be a “continuous improvement” on the basis of teachers’ informed reflection and agreed. The centrality of teacher development is viewed as the imperative and the only guarantee of the pupils’ efficiency. In search of teachers’ effectiveness the common features of Ukrainian educational reforms targeted changes in the improvement of the teaching and learning quality through mandatory (formal) and decentralized (democratic) approaches. While the traditional forms of in-service education such as centralized training courses continue to be offered in distance or face to-face modes, other forms have emerged as a result of growing popularity of democratic forms of professional development, which are chosen and initiated by the teachers themselves (school learning communities, special interest groups, professional development networks etc). School-university partnership project at Nizhyn (Ukraine) was established in 2010 with the focus on the teachers as people who often work in isolation and stand in need of interaction with colleagues, or who feel burnt out as professionals because of public perceptions and difficult working conditions. The purpose of establishing the partnership was to stimulate teachers to install their own professional development activities in their schools, focusing on their growth as individuals, professionals and as a learning community. The partnership has the following objectives: ─ to stimulate teachers to find inappropriate mental models through informed reflection and to produce improvement; to enhance teacher competence and engage them in collaborative action research on their practice; to provide clear communication within special interest groups where school teachers and university professors collaborate; ─ to explore new possibilities for ongoing teacher education and professional development; ─ to disseminate the practice and benefits of team work.. School-university partnership was organized through a series of ‘Roundtables’, visited by teachers (42) from regional schools and teacher-educators (22) from a participating university as a result university colleagues were teamed with school-based colleagues to engage in action research around issues identified by the school. The expertise that each partner brought to the issues under investigation contributed to mutual growth and development. The first stage of the partnership took place in 2011 and was aimed at monitoring the essential problems teachers faced in the everyday practice. The activities were organized in the form of learning circles and teacher-led workshops, which encouraged the teachers to focus on their classroom experiences, to reposition themselves as learners in their own classroom. Feedback from teachers involved in learning circles suggests that they not only valued the warmth and collegial atmosphere but found the circles to be a powerful approach to learning. The second stage – teacher-led workshops – was implemented in 2012. They were designed as platforms for not outside experts to tell teachers what to do: they were an opportunity for teachers to present their ideas and work to their colleagues in a non-threatening and collegial atmosphere where everyone was a co-learner and critical friend. Both stages were accompanied by the net-publications and ideas-boxes, widely attended by teachers.

Different methods and strategies were used: individual brainstorming, analytic discourse in a group, conversation with a critical friend, concretion of aims and formulation of success indicators, observations, quick methods for data collection, cross-checking alternative action strategies, case analysis, interview, categorizing qualitative survey data.

The perceptive of the partnership is to attract other schools to the cooperation in order to learn and disseminate the exemplary practices of accomplished teachers and enhance the pupils ‘effectiveness.