This article discusses a training program that aims to raise teachers' awareness of how they treat their students. The Teacher Expectations & Student Achievement, or TESA, program--which delves into whether teachers deal with their lower-achieving and higher-achieving students equitably--has been used nationally for more than 30 years. But its…

In order to respond to the growing academic diversity in classrooms, teachers must recognize that their students have different needs and commit to differentiating instruction accordingly; however, the relationship between teachers' willingness and ability to differentiate instruction and principals' attitudes toward differentiation is unknown. In…

This paper describes briefly the development and key features of one of the major context-based courses for upper high school students, Salters Advanced Chemistry. It goes on to consider the research evidence on the impact of the course, focusing on teachers' views, and, in particular, on students' affective and cognitive responses. The research…

In this article, a teacher shares his experience at handling student cheating in his small business management class at a private Christian liberal arts university and recommends the steps he had taken to other teachers who encountered similar situations. Shocked by the failing scores from two students who had done well on previous quizzes, the…

Acts of deliberate self-harm (DSH) by adolescents are thought to be on the increase. Many of those who self-harm are of school age and it is to be expected that schools (and their teachers) will be aware of the problem and will respond appropriately as part of their pastoral-care provision. However, a recent survey of research in pastoral care and…

This study focuses on an issue of recent policy significance--the need to aid teachers in successfully identifying why children struggle to acquire literacy. This study (a) asked K-1 teachers to nominate students that they believed to be at risk for literacy difficulties and to provide reasons for their concern, (b) examined how these reasons…

A study examined an eleventh grade literature teacher's written responses to her students' writing. Copies of the students' graded papers were collected, and the instructor and eight students were interviewed. These sources became central to building a framework detailing five key ways that this teacher oriented herself to student writing: (1)…

This report summarizes the findings of an impact study of the National Science Foundation (NSF) program of Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching (PAESMT). In 1994, NSF commissioned a company to conduct a series of informal conversations with 115 of the 430 awardees to gather more systematic information on what it…

Six teacher-researchers (three elementary school teachers, one teacher of hearing-impaired, one Chapter One teacher, and one university researcher) investigated how their membership in a community of writers affected their perceptions of themselves as writers. Three themes emerged in transcriptions of biweekly meetings held over one school year:…

"Culture shock" is the expression generally associated with the frustrations that occur when persons have difficulty functioning in a different culture or when persons are exposed to individuals from another culture. Culture shock typically occurs in a 4-stage process that can unfold over varying lengths of time: the honeymoon, crisis,…

While learning to quilt, and subsequently seeing quilting everywhere, one teacher decided to make a quilt with the theme of herself as a teacher. Quilts are stories told in visual form, and connections exist between curriculum theory and quilting. During a Master's program, the teacher learned about various curriculum theorists and was amazed at…

In Kentucky, the administrative roles of the superintendent and the principal have received considerable attention from state-level policymakers since the passage of the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA). Although there are comprehensive, ongoing assessment procedures for Kentucky principals and superintendents, there are no state-level…

This paper describes the outcomes of a study that tested a path model designed to predict the quality of instructional interactions between teachers and students in 46 heterogeneous general elementary education classrooms in 14 schools. The quality of instruction interactions was measured for three groups of students, students with disabilities,…

A case study analyzed the dialogue in three student-professor dialogue journals written in conjunction with a content area reading course and its related field-based practicum. The three participating students one in English, one in social studies, and one in biology, were selected from a class of 14 students based on representation of predominant…

This paper presents the results of a study to identify the specific needs graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) in speech communication have while teaching. Six GTAs completed a description of their experience as GTAs, maintained a day-by-day teaching log and participated in a group discussion. The paper uses a qualitative-phenomenological approach…