Since the '60s New York style graffiti has gradually become an integral part of the urban visual landscape all over the world. The -so called- graffiti scene evolved into an alternative space where writers educate one another. Through their association with other writers, especially through their membership in informal organized groups known as…

This paper is a response to "Challenges and Opportunities: Using a science-based video game in secondary school settings" by Rachel Muehrer, Jennifer Jenson, Jeremy Friedberg, and Nicole Husain. The article highlights two critical areas that I argue require more research in the studies of video games in education. The first area focuses on the…

Asserts that longer class periods must be approached and planned in a completely different manner than shorter periods. A 90-minute period requires a higher degree of teacher preparation and a critical focus on objectives and planning. Includes a summary of questions, predictions, and findings from teachers. (MJP)

Hollow reforms, like proposals that emphasize get-tough accountability over support for educators and widespread choice over quality neighborhood schools, enjoy their share of supporters. As the author watched the choice and accountability movements gain momentum across the nation, she concluded that curriculum and instruction were far more…

Describes how the author, a third-grade teacher, deals with the challenges of teaching within a school-based reform package. Describes how she finds ways of satisfying the required number of minutes of reading, math, and science instruction without sacrificing what she knows about what works for her students and their learning. Discusses pros and…

Ways to overcome resistance to investing employee time in training include making training fit the available time, persuading management of the benefits, reexamining assumptions about teaching and learning, and switching from training to performance support. (SK)

Four elements of a model of effective instruction are instructional Quality; Appropriate levels of instruction; Incentive; and Time. In the QAIT model, all four elements must be adequate, and improvements in multiple elements may produce larger learning gains than improvement in any one. (SK)

Suggestions are presented on how to avoid "dead spots" in a language class, including how a routine activity can be altered to become part of a lesson and also a lengthy illustration of how a normal lesson can be upgraded to offer students a richer blend of instruction. (LB)

Discusses eight ways technology can improve teachers' effectiveness, students' quality of learning, and the management of time. Offers a response from a colleague outlining eight good reasons to move cautiously. (SR)

Carol Twigg, president of the National Center for Academics Transformation and a secondary school teacher, debates on whether technology in the classroom improves student learning. She claims that the key to increasing student learning is to get students more engaged in what they are studying.

The report examines issues in block scheduling as it affects foreign language teaching and learning. First, key questions related to block scheduling are discussed from the perspective of student learning, access, and workload. These include questions concerning the potential of block learning to improve achievement and rate of learning, to…

In this article, the authors call for an end to an approach to teaching which makes a nonsense of pupils' learning of mathematics. They decry the over-regulation of instruction techniques based on Ofsted inspections, showing how much class time may be lost to prescribed events like warm-ups and lesson recaps. To illustrate their assertion, they…

This article is an open letter to English teachers by the author, a second-year graduate student in English education doing substitute teaching. She argues that as a substitute teacher, expectations of her teaching abilities and those of most substitute teachers are incredibly low, and that low expectations often result in low performance. Here,…

This article attempts to apply mastery learning theory to research on full- and half-day kindergarten. It is proposed that the application of mastery learning theory would greatly aid in the understanding of relationships between important program variations and predicted outcomes, and demonstrably enhance research efforts to identify differences…

Explores time of day as a learning-style variable that affects student achievement. Provides some concrete steps for changing the learning styles of teachers and administrators, such as testing themselves to identify their current teaching styles or providing interested teachers with expert training in learning-styles approaches. (VWC)