This study was conducted to examine the effectiveness of the GK-12: Lowcountry Partners for Inquiry program that included an emphasis on constructivist teaching methods for science teachers and science graduate students. The goal was to monitor middle school teachers' use of constructivist practices in their classrooms two years after their last…

Many new teachers come into the teaching profession without the benefit of methods courses and numerous veteran teachers find that their long-ago methods courses do not have high transference to today's language agenda or today's students. Understanding that teachers want to teach to standards and appeal to students' interests in learning…

Reviews of teachers professional development show that it is a highly complicated area, in which it is difficult to offer a unified and comprehensive view of the growing development of teachers. This study looks into the development of teachers by tracking their practices in a problematic teaching area: "learning through play". Four Hong…

The authors describe the training model used to develop proficiency in teaching a culturally-grounded prevention curriculum. Teachers believed it vital to discuss substance use and considered culture and ethnicity central to students' lives, although few had experience teaching prevention curricula. Training effects were evaluated using three…

This document is a Problem Based Learning project addressing the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and the achievement gap issue that lingers in public education. It centers on the ideas of cultural sensitivity as a means of educating all students in an era of accountability. The goal of the project was to address the problem of minority student…

The purpose of this "Handbook" is to bolster the effective implementation of the intervention models and strategies outlined in the "2010 School Improvement Grant" (SIG) program--section 1003(g) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)--in order to achieve the program's clear goal--rapid improvement of persistently…

The authors' hypothesis is that if teachers (as experts) understand and teach concepts from the position of expertise teacher quality will improve. They believe that focusing on the key ideas will deepen both teacher and student understanding and allow learners to build the concepts necessary to form solid foundations for the application of…

This study draws on research conducted with participants of a professional development project focusing on serving the needs of English language learners in U.S. public schools. We analyze the reflections of two preservice teachers as an assessment of our ability to meet our goal for social justice in teacher education. Qualitative analysis of the…

In this paper, we describe our path for designing an online community of practice for teachers in Singapore, from identifying the current status of professional development to designing an online platform where teachers can share vivid images of their teaching practices with other teachers. To identify current practices in professional…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to consider how simulations are increasingly used in training programs for the development of skills such as leadership. However, the requirements of leadership development go beyond the development of task specific procedural knowledge or expertise that simulations have typically been used to develop.…

This article reports findings of a Study in Mexico program and its potential for transforming teacher beliefs and observations about schooling in Mexico. This particular program has been in existence for 17 years; however, findings for this study are limited to data collected during two consecutive summers. The study was qualitative in design, and…

This study investigates mathematics teacher learning in a video-based professional development environment called "video clubs." In particular, the authors explore whether teachers develop professional vision, the ability to notice and interpret significant features of classroom interactions, as they participate in a video club. Analysis for the…

A professional development activity combining group sessions with self-study assignments was used to facilitate early intervention providers' use of participation-based practices. The activity was submitted by 96 providers who completed two videotapes of sessions with families and children. Tapes were coded to identify the type of service…

A realistic applied chemical engineering experimental design and statistical analysis project is documented in this article. This project has been implemented as part of the professional development and applied statistics courses at Villanova University over the past five years. The novel aspects of this project are that the students are given a…

Reforms in education have repeatedly been confronted with the challenge of policy implementation. Recent initiatives in mathematics are no exception. Pressing for fundamental and complex changes to pedagogy, the initiatives demand much from teachers. In this article, we propose a conceptual frame for understanding how teachers and schools work to…