During the last ten years, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) has ensured that educators at every level focus on accountability, use scientifically-based research, be data driven, and use standardized tests in an effort to improve student learning. Love it or hate it, NCLB has been the catalyst for huge changes in the world of education…

The field of teacher research is increasingly including self-study as a valid and reliable method with which teachers can study and improve practice. In this self-study, I develop knowledge of myself as a nonfiction reader and use it to inform my instruction. Guided by the work of Schoenbach, Greenleaf, Cziko, and Hurwitz (1999), I use…

This article examines dilemmas in measuring the impact of mentoring on teacher trainees and on their learners in the lifelong learning sector (LLS). In this small-scale research project, five mentors and five mentees were asked how they might evaluate the impact that mentoring might have, not just on trainees, but on their learners. The research…

This study examines the action research topics and topic preferences of two groups of grassroots teachers: active researchers, and potential researchers. The analysis of the topics appears to indicate that, over the past decade, action research at the teaching of English at the grassroots level to speakers of other languages has been principally…

"O! this learning, what a thing it is." -W. Shakespeare, "The Taming of the Shrew." The aim of this action research was to find out if active grammar involvement amongst students might lead to better results. My approach was to activate my students during grammar instruction by using cooperative learning: that is a form of…

The purpose of this study was to investigate participating teachers' (PTs) perceptions on the effectiveness of collaborating with a peer for purposes of professional development. As the primary researcher, I wanted to investigate how my colleagues (PTs) perceived peer-to-peer collaboration as a method of professional development. As well, I wanted…

This dissertation is an action research study examining the use of technology to encourage critical thinking and digital literacy in a community college history class. The students are responsible for researching course material and teaching the class. They then use a wiki to contribute to and edit an interactive, online textbook that has been…

During the 2010-11 school-year at Scootney Springs Elementary, an action research project with 8 teachers was initiated to create a culture of distributed leadership in the school building. Throughout phase 1 of the study, we collected data from interviews, surveys, checklists, meeting minutes, observations, and documented discussions with the…

Written collaboratively by two former teaching partners, this paper details the journey taken by a team of teachers from a large southern Ontario school board as they completed an action research project during the 2008-2009 school year, in conjunction with ETFO and their Teachers Learning Together: A Math Journey initiative. This paper will…

Over the years, researchers have consistently reported that, regardless of the subject matter, students working in small groups tend to learn more of what is taught and retain it longer than when the same content is presented in other instructional formats (Beckman, 1990; Chickering & Gamson, 1991). The majority of these research studies have…

This study aims to probe into the cognitive sources and reflective content of student teachers' socialization, such as job proficiency, goals and values, school culture, and role regulation by "teaching blog". This paper utilizes eight student teachers of business, data processing, Chinese, English, science, and technology as subjects. Through…

This paper aims to explore democratic values in higher education pedagogies, as related to an Early Childhood Studies (ECS) degree course in an English university. It seeks to find out what constitutes a multi-disciplinary course from both student and tutor perspectives. It is contextualised by the concepts of participation embedded in the idea of…

Purpose: This study adopts an action research approach with the aim of improving the process of career decision making among undergraduates in a business school at a "new" university in the UK. Design/methodology/approach: The study utilised unfreezing techniques, multiple case studies in conjunction with the principle of analogical…

In this article, the author presents his study of parent participation at an international school in Spain offering the British curriculum. He used quantitative methods and administered questionnaires to gather data that reflected the views of a large proportion of the school's parent community. He administered semi-structured interviews to gain a…

Those people involved in the professional development school (PDS) effort have arrived at a time in their brief history when PDS partnerships can break the status quo and become contemporary laboratories of innovation for ushering in change and a new era of PK-12 education integrated with teacher education. In this chapter, the author appreciates…