During the spring semester of 2006 the Department of Physical Education (John Jay College of Criminal Justice) and a writing fellow, an English doctoral candidate (CUNY Graduate Center), began working together, with the goal of creating a new writing assignment for an integral course at the college. PED 103, Personal Physical Fitness and Dynamic…

From 1999-2005, the Mathematics in Indigenous Contexts (MIC) project was implemented by the Board of Studies, New South Wales (NSW), in conjunction with the NSW Department of Education and Training, and academics from two universities. MIC project members worked with schools and communities at two sites: a primary school in an urban community in…

This collaborative inquiry is based on university instructors' reflections on their experiences in negotiating and facilitating an international telecollaboration that connected their English as a second language and English as a foreign language students in Canada, Mexico, and Russia. The central themes that emerged from the instructors'…

In this article the authors analyze the mentoring of an alternate route beginning teacher to better understand mentoring practices in alternative licensure programs and to identify how such programs might more effectively mentor this growing population of teachers. They draw on models of mentoring from traditional and alternate route programs to…

During the past decade, researchers in special education have begun to investigate the unique and complex challenges encountered by novice special educators. These investigations have documented numerous factors in special education settings that contribute to the stresses of the first year of teaching for them, including: role ambiguity, students…

Personal epistemology, originating from social construction theory, provides a framework for researchers to understand how individuals view their world. The Attitudes About Reality (AAR) scale is one survey method that qualitatively assesses personal epistemology along the logical positivist and social constructionist continuum; however, the…

In this article a study is presented in which teachers describe the working situation at their school. The aim of the study was to find out in what respects the school needed to be developed. The study was a case study and the method for collecting data was focus group dialogues. All teacher teams at a Swedish secondary school participated. The…

This article describes the use of microteaching lesson study as an approach to promoting collaboration and learning among teachers, particularly those in prospective-teacher education programs, through a repeated cyclic process of developing, implementing, analyzing, and revising mathematics lessons and reporting their experience. (Contains 3…

Research Findings: Challenging the development of high-quality preschool education is the instability of the preschool teacher workforce, blamed in part on workplace conditions including isolationism, perceived lack of career reward, and lack of preparation. Little attention has been given to whether a preschool's organizational climate can…

Through an examination of one institution's efforts to strengthen teaching and learning on campus, the author makes a strong case for the use of common examinations as a powerful form of assessment as well as a fruitful context for faculty deliberations. Providing a continuing occasion for faculty inquiry and discussion, insuring grade…

This paper examines university teachers' conceptions of effective teaching. It reports a small illuminatory study of eight teachers. Their narratives identify rich insights. Conceptions of "learning through dialogue", "community of learners" and "meta-learning" emerge as crucial in supporting students' learning. These conceptions extend…

In the Monroe Township (New Jersey) Public Schools, teachers' learning occurs daily, not just on one day in October and February. Central office and school-level administrators foster job-embedded teacher growth. Every day is a professional development day in the district, but that has not always been so. How did the district become a system with…

In "contextual learning theory" three types of contextual conditions (differentiation of learning procedures and materials, integrated ICT support, and improvement of development and learning progress) are related to four aspects of the learning process (diagnostic, instructional, managerial, and systemic aspects). The resulting…

The authors of this article are two professors from a northwestern regional university. One of them works in the special education department and the other works in the elementary education department. As they began to work together on their research and teaching, they found that there were many communication barriers between their departments and…

In a time of No Child Left Behind and strict accountability measures for teachers and schools, the active engagement of learners is at the heart of effective literacy instruction. Educators strive to make their students competent, independent readers. They want them to read for personal purposes, such as information seeking or pleasure. One way to…