Studying and understanding classrooms narratively allows researchers to see the unities, continuities, and rhythms in the whole which cannot be discovered by analyzing parts. Narrative links educations to other aspects of the study of human experience and adds insight to the process of becoming a teacher. (MT)

Recent research on effective teaching is used to critique the performance of U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett as he taught a lesson on Federalist Paper No. 10 to high school juniors. (MT)

Exploration and comparison of the teaching and learning themes and strategies found in learning-oriented and work-oriented classrooms found that the former classrooms displayed a learning purpose, peer helping, self-evaluation, supportiveness of errors, endogenous lesson-introduction, fewer negative management situations, and teachers' beliefs in…

In this study, ethnographic and process-tracing methodologies were used to explain the nature of a teacher's theory of action and the relationships between that theory and interactive thinking and specific teaching behaviors. Lesson aspects of particular interest were questioning and structuring by the teacher and teacher baiting by the students.…

Discusses ways that researchers in higher education may gain access to and collect quality data about teacher thinking and practice, proposing roles and relationships for researchers conducting qualitative research in which they may be consultants and in which affective, human-relating skills are as important as traditional technical research…

Material from the literature and from current research on teacher thinking is used to explore models of teachers' interactive thinking and relationships among teachers' practical theories of teaching, interactive thinking, and classroom action. (IAH)

Israeli teachers (N=142) were surveyed in a study designed to identify the effects of computer-managed practice on teaching methods, factors which encouraged teachers' adoption of computers for instruction, and the effects of this type of instruction on student learning. (IAH)

Examines how writing produced within school-based practitioner research functions in framing and guiding classroom practice and research processes, outlining a model from Saussurian linguistics and from hermeneutical theory. An analogy is drawn with practitioner research, which is characterized as the generation and analysis of a sequence of…

Discusses decisions that must be addressed when using repertory grid techniques to study teacher thinking, suggesting there is an art and a science to conducting constructivist research. The article illustrates the use of the repertory grid, snake, and self-characterization sketch to help student teachers consider their views on teacher…

This article describes the methodology of a four-study research program designed to develop a grounded theory of pupil learning in elementary classrooms. Findings illustrate the relationship of instructional contexts, content variables, and pupil behavior and utterances to short-term and long-term learning. (Author/IAH)

Study examined how British teachers' attitudes and classroom practice were influenced by government-imposed innovations, noting English teachers' responses to the 1993 Standard Assessment Tasks for 14-year-olds. Results noted teachers initially had strong solidarity in their disapproval of the tests, but their reasons for disapproval varied…

Reports a study of 178 elementary school teachers' beliefs about the effectiveness of different strategies for fostering student motivation. Found that teachers were well aware of the usefulness of strategies that researchers claim increase student task involvement and intrinsic motivation. In cases where research is divided, it was judged that…

Results from a study of at-risk boys in a summer camp suggest that critical thinking can be fostered effectively in an instructional framework that emphasizes teacher modeling, an indirect approach to instruction, group collaboration, and strategy facilitation. The study examined changes in critical- thinking scores, as well as teacher and student…

Study examined how teachers understand research in light of their prior beliefs about what research is and how it should influence their teaching by questioning 13 teachers about 5 articles they read. Found that many teachers focused on the product of research rather than the main ideas and evidence in support of that product. (MDM)

Reports a study of British teachers' and students' perceptions of effective teaching and learning. Researchers observed and interviewed 13 teachers and 235 students (ages 11-12 years) and found considerable agreement about what constituted effective teaching and learning. Both groups believed learning opportunities were heightened by the use of…