By observing, or "noticing," what sparks learning in the classroom, teachers and students alike can cultivate a learning environment centered around personalization and choice. Education experts John Almarode and Paul Emerich France outline strategies for engineering a culture of self-reflection that sets learning in motion.

This article is a translation, with accompanying comments, of an address given by Paulo Freire in 1985. Freire deals with his vision of the virtues necessary in a teacher. He considers eight virtues, the final one underpinning the others. For Freire, this final virtue--the necessity of reading the text from reading the context--means that critical…

In this article, I offer a story, rendered in creative nonfiction, of my experience as a young and flustered college professor challenged by a defiant and disruptive graduate student. The story is followed by a critical reflection of the experience where I examine the role of communication and culture in regard to classroom disruptions and assess…

General music teachers can promote gender inclusivity in music classrooms through music listening activities. Helping all students feel included and honored could improve student learning and foster continued and diversified music listening in school and beyond. The purpose of this article, the first of three about gender inclusivity in general…

Alternative and flexible education settings may come in different forms, but they generally have in common a focus on young people who have been disengaged from conventional schooling. One challenge of these settings, therefore, is to change the way education is offered in order to better engage these students. Much of the onus for this changed…

Reflection is a vital component of quality teaching. It is supported and practiced in teacher preparation programs and furthered by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, whereas critical reflection with particular emphasis on the internal schema of the practitioner has not been focused on much and training within teacher…

Determining the effectiveness of physical education teachers is a difficult process complicated by the expectations of the building principals, the extensiveness of national and state standards, student ability levels, and the severely limited time that the programs are allotted. The dearth of effective, efficient evaluation tools lends itself to…

Teaching decisions made "in the moment" do not often allow for deliberate, well thought through actions by teachers. Sometimes we are conscious of the options that are available and we do make deliberate decisions. We may even be aware of the values impinging on our decision, but for many other aspects embedded in our teaching, deeper influences…

Spontaneity in the classroom provides myriad opportunities and possibilities for learning, building relationships, and collaboration. There is no limit to what can be learned and enjoyed. The teacher does not have to center her curriculum around holidays or a commercial curriculum. She does not have to rigidly follow the seasons, the calendar, or…

"Faculty Virtues and Character Strengths: Reflective Exercises for Sustained Renewal" is a transdisciplinary faculty handbook to enhance the quality of learning and teaching. The author applies six multicultural virtues and 24 character strengths from Positive Psychology research to the tasks of course design, managing critical incidents, and…

Reflective supervision is a relationship-based practice that supports the professional development of early childhood practitioners. Reflective supervision helps practitioners cope with the intense feelings and stress that are generated when working with at-risk children and families. It allows them to focus on the purpose and goals of the program…

The purpose of this article is to identify some issues related to ethical and moral dispositions in teacher education programs. My intent is to provide a starting point for gaining a professional consensus on the ways that teacher educators approach the definition, assessment, and development of dispositions in their teacher education programs. To…

This article reports on an action research project in which two New Zealand classroom teachers worked with a university researcher to investigate the effects of their knowledge, thinking, and beliefs on the ways in which they mediated students' learning in teacher-student interactions. Working in a small community of practice over a two-year…