Blended learning, which combines face-to-face workshops with self-directed online learning, is becoming a good alternative in designing and deploying professional development programs. The online component adapts to teachers' time constraints, requires fewer trained professionals for its implementation, and enhances participants' opportunities to…

Rather than merely dusting and polishing the old comfy stuff, these authors have spent 35 years trying to find out how people can learn to use new curriculums and ways of teaching. They have done some studies that would meet high standards of design, learned from peering at correlations, and stumbled on important things while teaching kids and…

Teacher professional development plays an important role in a teacher's growth and every year school districts spend a large portion of their budgets in professional development activities. However, as districts face increasing budget cuts, funds for professional development compete against other district priorities. As a result, partnerships…

The academic demands of classroom English require students to think about language structure in ways that they are not used to. Everybody "knows" much English grammar intuitively but the academic rules themselves can be difficult to articulate. This goes for punctuation, too: errors often reflect students' lack of explicit knowledge of grammatical…

In 1999, Liping Ma published her book "Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics: Teachers' Understanding of Fundamental Mathematics in the United States and China," which probed the kinds of knowledge that elementary school teachers need to convey mathematical concepts and procedures effectively to their students. Later that year,…

Climate change is occurring, is very likely caused by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems. Each additional ton of greenhouse gases emitted commits us to further change and greater risks. In the judgment of the Committee on America's Climate Choices, the environmental, economic, and…

Raising any child is challenging for parents, but raising a gifted child can be especially demanding. Parents benefit from quality information about giftedness as well as effective parenting strategies for working with very bright youngsters. Parents may wish to better motivate their gifted children, helping them to take personal responsibility…

Arising from a longitudinal study examining the influence of school reform on teachers' knowledge communities and communities of knowing, this narrative inquiry traces the development of a workshop approach to reading and writing, principally through the introduction of a staff developer, to the school's professional knowledge landscape and to the…

The best science teachers are not only experts in teaching and knowledgeable about science content, but they are also great at teaching science. They have specialized teaching knowledge, including knowledge of effective pedagogical practices in science, student difficulties with understanding content, and curricular purposes. As a result,…

Language minority students represent an increasing percentage of the school-age student population in the United States. Because the number of English language learners (ELLs) is on the rise nationwide, some states have enacted English-only legislation that impacts the educational experiences of ELLs and the teachers who work with them. Many…

The aim of the Central Michigan University Alpena-Montmorency-Alcona Teaching American History (TAH) Project has been to forge a model of professional development that would not merely improve teachers' knowledge of events, people, and dates, but to go beyond this to strengthen the understanding of the nature and practice of historical thinking,…

Describes the development and implementation of the Super Science Connections course materials and elementary-teacher workshops at the Institute for Chemical Education (ICE) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. (WRM)

This paper describes a content upgrading course on Secondary School Algebra which was planned and conducted for in-service mathematics teachers who are trained to teach mathematics at lower secondary level (ages 13 to 14). In order to be an effective mathematics teacher, one needs to know a great deal of mathematical knowledge on top of good…

Computers and calculators are in general widely used in Norwegian schools, but with limited use in specific school subjects, as particularly in mathematics teaching. Various reports from surveys and research projects indicate that teachers' competence with ICT is a crucial point, and that teachers' lack of knowledge of how to utilise software for…

This article reports on a one-day workshop in New York to provide practical information and training for teaching assistants working in the mainstream classroom setting with students who have visual impairments. The workshop provided information on "myths" versus "facts" of visual impairment, eye conditions, orientation and mobility, technology,…