Children growing up in disadvantaged neighborhoods perform much worse in school compared to children growing up under more favorable circumstances. We examine a program ("Coaching for Teaching") targeted at ten lower secondary schools in Sweden's most disadvantaged city districts. The program's aim was to enhance student performance by…

The Common Core State Standards have been adopted by 46 states and the District of Columbia. They enjoy a huge following of well-wishers and supporters who are optimistic that the standards will boost achievement in U.S. schools. Setting aside the cheerleading and fond hopes, what are the real chances of success? The most reasonable prediction is…

In order to promote effective pedagogical practices for students' work-based learning, we need to understand better how students' learning at work can be supported. This paper examines the factors explaining students' workplace learning (WPL) outcomes, addressing three aspects: (1) student-related individual factors, (2) social and…

In many respects, one couldn't find a group of 10 schools more diverse than the finalists for the 2013 Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence. One community college serves 1,500 students, another 56,000. There are institutions devoted primarily--even solely--to technical degrees, and ones devoted mainly to preparing students for further…

The Australian coaching workplace (to be referred to as the State Institute of Sport; SIS) under consideration in this study employs significant numbers of full-time performance sport coaches and can be accurately characterized as a genuine workplace. Through a consideration of the interaction between what the workplace (SIS) affords the…

This paper explores three influences on the effectiveness of teacher professional development for improving schools--the individual teacher, the learning activities in which teachers participate and the structures and supports provided by schools for teacher learning. It does so by relying on survey data collected for a national study of teacher…

Although Response to Intervention (RtI) implementation efforts have been occurring in schools across the country for more than a decade, questions and concerns are emerging, as some schools are not observing significantly improved student achievement or behavior outcomes as expected. In the literature on RtI implementation, most authors indicate…

This study, concerning teacher motivation, developed from an initial evaluation of a school-university professional development programme, designed to improve classroom practice and achievement for culturally diverse students. The evaluation answered a broad range of questions. A key theme to emerge related to factors that influenced teacher…

While millions of dollars are spent on traditional professional development each year in the USA, some school districts are trying other means to increase students' test scores. One strategy is hiring mathematics coaches as on-site professional developers. Whereas mathematics coaching is a newly investigated research area and many issues still…

Few inquiries have investigated master's students in education as they mentor preservice teachers. In this embedded case study I explored the professional development of 15 master's students as they mentored 35 preservice teachers for eight weeks in a summer literacy camp. Data sources were e-mail exchanges, written reports, and transcriptions…

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is the latest development in a long history of standards-based-reform in the United States. As of November 4, 2011, 46 states and the District of Columbia have adopted new curricular standards, called the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). These states and the District of Columbia are now implementing…

Whenever there is a discussion on closing or bridging the achievement gap in education, one accurately reasons that the "gap" in question is among groups of students from various cultural and/or socioeconomic backgrounds. Stakeholders throughout academia, then, frantically search for solution(s)" to poor student achievement in…

Effective principals are those who boost academic achievement for all students, increase the effectiveness of their teaching staffs, and consistently take leadership actions shown to improve outcomes for students. Therefore principal evaluation systems should place 70% of their weight on the ability of principals to increase student achievement…

Schools are required to meet a range of students' learning needs and effective school leadership is needed for the implementation of pedagogical practices responsive to the challenges of increasing student diversity and academic accountability. Literature on differentiated instruction and its constituent elements suggests differentiation results…

A new study that analyzes the status of professional learning in the United States reveals that the nation is making some progress in providing increased support and mentoring for new teachers. But the study also reveals that the United States has moved backward in providing the vast majority of teachers with the kind of ongoing, intensive…