In response to national and state trends promoting inquiry-based social studies over the last decade, social studies teacher educators at the University of Kentucky revamped their pre-service program to create alignment around the key inquiry concepts of questions, tasks, and sources. Part of the program revision involved the creation of a new…

Rubric-based observations of pre- and inservice teachers are common practice in schools. Popular observation tools often result in minimal variation in ratings between teachers, require extensive training and time demands for raters, and provide minimal feedback for professional development. Alternatively, direct observation methods are evidenced…

For coaches, access to classrooms isn't straightforward and is far from guaranteed. Access is a prerequisite for coaching, yet there are many barriers beyond a coach's control, making their job difficult to impossible. In this article, the authors detail how five administrative and structural forces shaped coaches' access to teachers' classrooms.…

Billions of dollars are spent each year in the United States on technology for schools, and researchers in this case study wanted to determine the degree to which individual computing devices (ICDs) enhance the learning experience of students in grades six to twelve. The leadership practice of instructional rounds (City, Elmore, Fiarmen &…

This pilot study examined the utility of a practice-based coaching (PBC) intervention in Swedish elementary schools designed to support the classroom climate and benefit students. The intervention involved activities, self-assessment, observation, and coaching to the teachers, with the aim of improving the classroom climate and students'…

Awareness of students' learning status, and maintaining students' focus and attention during class are important issues in classroom management. Several observation instruments have been designed for human observers to document students' engagement in class, but the processes are time-consuming and laborious. Recently, with the development of…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of email-delivered performance feedback to teachers working in inclusive early childhood classrooms. A concurrent multiple probe across-participants design was used to examine the relation between performance feedback delivered via email and teachers' use of play expansions. Results…

Background/Context: Although professional development using coaching has been widely adopted as a way of improving early care and education practice, only recently have researchers begun to look at the content and features of coaching that lead to desired outcomes. This study examines one of the first projects to explore coaching components among…

A multiple-baseline across behaviors design was utilized to examine the relation between performance-based feedback (PF) and the frequency of teaching teams' use of target behaviors during observation sessions with six teachers in three inclusive preschool classrooms. Teachers increased their use of target behaviors when feedback was provided and…

Coaching is increasingly emphasised as a promising feature of professional development, yet concrete understanding of this complex process is lacking. This study investigates an observation-based coaching process by interviewing coaches and teachers from a three-year longitudinal PD programme. Findings indicate that coaches often supplemented…

Historically, classroom observations have been conducted in educational establishments for different purposes such as evaluation of teachers, promotion, curriculum design, or professional development. In this study, the researchers aimed to improve the effectiveness of the classroom observation process in an English Language Center based in a…

Background: Chile's national school-based mental health program, "Skills for Life" (SFL), has demonstrated effectiveness in improving behavioral and academic outcomes in first- through third-grade students. The current study assessed the feasibility and outcomes of SFL's program for sixth- through eighth-grade students. Methods: We…

The study addressed the gap in fifth-grade science proficiency between English language learners (ELLs) enrolled in two different science programs in a large school district in the Southeast United States. The Inspire program was implemented in 125 schools, while a combination of Inspire and Promoting Science among English Language Learners…

This paper advances the discourse on school-university partnerships by considering the challenges of implementing a project to support the professional development of teachers through the use of video-mediated lesson observation within such a partnership network. The project discussed here was initially established by teacher-educators and located…

Purpose: In this chapter we describe how a rubric-style observation instrument for observing classroom writing instruction was used to focus and optimize collaborative video analysis sessions among teachers and researchers spread across six states. As part of a 3-year Institute of Education Sciences (IES) development grant, we used videos of…