Researchers have found that despite reformers' best efforts, teachers' mathematics classroom practice remains largely unchanged--in part because teachers hold fast to their own mathematics understandings, attitudes, and experiences. In particular, in the last decade, elementary mathematics teachers have found themselves balancing a number of…

Two experiments investigating the benefit of computer-based applications in geography education are presented. The computer-based methods employ concepts of visualization, including animation and interactivity, to facilitate active learning. These computer-based methods are compared with physical (i.e. tangible) models, which themselves can be…

We describe the future technology workshop (FTW), a method whereby people with everyday knowledge or experience in a specific area of technology use (such as using digital cameras) envision and design the interactions between current and future technology and activity. Through a series of structured workshop sessions, participants collaborate to…

The authors describe an evolving theoretical framework that has been called one of the best kept secrets of academia: cultural-historical activity theory, the result of proposals Lev Vygotsky first articulated but that his students and followers substantially developed to constitute much expanded forms in its second and third generations. Besides…

This paper explores Fred Genesee's Classroom Based Assessment (CBA) as an alternative model for assessing instruction as it affects students' learning in an immersion program. CBA collects information on language while instruction and other activities are taking place, allowing teachers the flexibility to alter teaching strategies to be more…

The effectiveness of an evaluation model for interactive television courses was studied. Inquiry was conducted with distance education graduate students using a structured, open-ended questioning format to obtain their authentic voices about a traditional model: Small Group Instructional Diagnosis (SGID), a facilitator-based model how to open the…

There has been a recent increase in attention given to the school counselor's role in family counseling. Family counseling can be a useful way to provide early intervention with families whose children exhibit difficulties in school. However, many school systems do not adequately supervise counselors. Additional training in family counseling and…

This book describes a training technique in which an art activity called a touchstone exercise serves as the basis of an action-oriented leadership development program. Part 1 describes the context in which the touchstone exercise was developed and details the process of setting the stage for and conducting it. Two case studies illustrating the…

The speech communication discipline seems to be stuck in status quo. The current climate of the discipline K-12 is one that is not mobilized for the future. However, a paradigm shift within the Speech Communication Association may be evolving in the creation of a model for the process for development of assessment strategies and instruments.…

This paper proposes that post-reform mathematics teaching may be characterized as "improvisational." Observations of an extended mathematical investigation from a summer institute for elementary teachers are used to examine four aspects of improvisational practice: (1) the structuring of the activity; (2) planning and preparing that is…

A new paradigm for evaluating school restructuring that is based on the teacher-as-researcher concept, or action research, is presented in this paper. The first section compares the traditional and new evaluation paradigms. The old model is competitive, one-dimensional, reactive, and based on external change agents; it appeals to fear and views…

This report describes the role of analogies in science instruction and presents research on a model for teaching with analogies. This model is being developed from research studies of textbooks and exemplary teachers; it provides guidelines for the strategic use of analogies during science instruction to explain fundamentally important concepts in…

This handbook provides a practical model for developing and using a comprehensive faculty evaluating system that responds to the specific needs, concerns, and characteristics of the faculty and administration of an individual academic unit. It outlines an eight-step procedure that focuses on the determination of: (1) the faculty role model; (2)…

Kenneth Burke has continued to exert a profound influence on recent theories of composition and rhetoric, specifically on how writing might be taught in the classroom. Two recent composition textbooks, "Process, Form, and Substance: A Rhetoric for Advanced Writers" by Richard Coe and "Writing Is Critical Action" by Tilly…

This document contains four papers from a symposium on work analysis and expertise. "A Taxonomy of Employee Development: Toward an Organizational Culture of Expertise" (Ronald L. Jacobs) includes five categories of employee competence: novice, specialist, experienced specialist, expert, and master. "An Integrated Needs…