Research suggests that traditional models for principal preparation often do not adequately prepare principals for the challenges of their daily work. This study examines how one private university in the south utilized a Grow Your Own (GYO) concept to provide principal candidates with more authentic field-based cohort learning that revolved…

Descriptions of mathematical thinking have an extended lineage. Sometimes accurate and sometimes not, sometimes misinterpreted and sometimes not, characterizations of mathematical thought processes have inspired and at times misled people interested in designing or framing mathematics instruction. Challenges the field faces in conceptualizing…

This article is based on a pedagogical action research initiative comprising two research cycles. The study explores what constitutes meaningful experiences in the classroom from the pupils' perspectives and how understanding pupils' perspectives can foster the development of teachers' practical theory and classroom actions. Photography and group…

As teachers strive to make sense of and implement knowledge of creativity that is available from the research community, school librarians are called upon to help turn rhetoric into reality. Developing the creativity habit is far more meaningful and effective if the classroom activity is representative of the real-world problem-solving process.…

Engineers commonly use rules, theories and models that lack scientific justification. Examples include rules of thumb based on experience, but also models based on obsolete science or folk theories. Centrifugal forces, heat and cold as substances, and sucking vacuum all belong to the latter group. These models contradict scientific knowledge, but…

This study focused on the perceptions of six superintendents regarding the state of the profession as of 2012, and it reports their thoughts and suggestions as to what preparation is needed by superintendents for the 21st century. The participating superintendents, who were all members of the Western States Benchmarking Consortium, were employed…

As long as there have been public schools, there have been reformers of public schools. All too often, they have insisted on sweeping changes; enamored of their bold, new idea, they haven't considered whether anything established ought to endure. The result? A century of faddish ideas, but little real progress. Among today's most vocal reformers…

Any feasible problem-solving theory must become a master plan defining actions leading to desired results. This article presents an integrated, research-based planning model stressing a contingency approach to problem-solving that recognizes constraints such as time, accountability, learning time, uncertainty, conflicts, and complexity. Includes…

Synthesizes a conceptual framework (or linguistic-conceptual systems) for thinking about conceptual frameworks, discusses their potential for helping users develop competence in applying them to unstructured problem solving, and outlines instructional implications. The theory-practice gap arises partly from failure to conceptualize the nature of…

A study of 20 randomly selected professionals from each of 4 disciplines (education, engineering, law, and medicine) found that educators read less professional literature than did engineers, lawyers, and physicians. Educators cited lack of time, dislike of technical jargon, reliance on other support systems, lack of incentives, inaccessibility,…

This article explores the relationship between research and teaching, arguing that each of them is both a demanding science and an imaginative art, and that they both manifest the values and processes of learning, the open mind and the open heart, as it were. This is a rather different proposition from the notion that "evidence" can be "applied"…

Through a study of teachers resolving classroom dilemmas, a way of characterizing teachers' beliefs for fuller understanding of their practices is suggested. Examining a teacher's perspective as a dynamic complex of beliefs and assumptions demonstrates that successful change efforts must consider the perspective in its entirety. (CJH)

The question of how to provide children with a set of core values and beliefs, while still allowing them freedom of choice or independence, permeates not only the family structure, but the education system as well. The educator/author of this paper, a teaching artist, justifies drama as promoting critical understanding and enhancing the ability to…

Focuses on status of drug education as change agent; complexities of education and research as partners; and need for compelling alternatives to provide solution choices to drug problem. Claims future can be commanded by putting values of democracy back on drawing board, as an overarching context in the search for ideas and compelling alternatives…

This paper offers a process for organizational decision making that will assist educators involved in school restructuring. The first part, which focuses on the nature of theory and the relationship of theory to practice, concludes that current organizational theory on decision making is inadequate. The next section outlines four stages of a…