Objective: To identify facilitative strategies that could be used in developing a tobacco cessation program for community dental practices. Methods: Nominal group technique (NGT) meetings and a card-sort task were used to obtain formative data. A cognitive mapping approach involving multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis was…

Educating students with special needs in school based agricultural education (SBAE) is a problem that should be addressed. While many students in SBAE classes have special needs, contradicting research exists establishing the best method of instruction for students with special needs. Inquiry-based instruction shows some promise, but little is…

Japanese Lesson Study has come under increasing attention from educators in the West and throughout South-East Asia since it was revealed outside Japan through the release of the TIMSS Video Study. In this paper we argue that Japanese Lesson Study provides a model for large scale, sustainable professional development. In particular, we draw on our…

The school environment is a very dynamic sphere. Changes continually take place in educational policy, curriculum and in a school's physical and social environment. A teacher who wants to be effective in such an environment has to adapt to these changes. Continuous professional development of teachers is essential to addressing the gaps in…

Supporting a diverse school community is ongoing and ever evolving, but many schools need to find a way to start the process, especially as they make the transition from a predominantly white school to a diverse one. Having a diverse student body requires a conscious effort to support all students and to educate teachers to do their part in…

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the number of refugees worldwide was 10.5 million in 2009 and this number continues to grow (United Nations Refugee Agency, 2010). There is a shortage of evidence based practices and information regarding the state of service provision for young refugee children and their families in…

This article details a professional development process with a group of teachers and educational psychologists in the UK, at a school for children identified as having social, emotional, and behavioural difficulties. The project focused on how teachers use conversation to include children within dialogue and incorporate children's ideas within the…

The introduction of standards into the education system poses numerous challenges and difficulties. As with any change, plans should be made for teachers to understand and implement the standards. This study examined science teachers' perceptions of the effectiveness of the standards for teaching and learning, and the extent and ease/difficulty of…

Formative evaluation and its associated methodology of reflection on practice are used extensively in academic staff development. In reflecting on formative evaluation processes in both more traditional and newer programmes conducted at a university of technology, a number of variables reported in the literature were observed to have influenced…

Through the process of initiating, implementing, and sustaining a schoolwide professional learning community (PLC), teachers and administrators at the pseudonymous Silver Valley Middle School provide a powerful example of distributed leadership in action. New leadership roles, coordination, and interdependency among staff have led to an increased…

In light of nationally mandated educational changes in Qatar, this study investigates in-service teachers' perceptions of professional development (PD). The aims are to identify challenges facing teachers' PD. The respondents were 40 in-service teachers from two schools in Doha, Qatar, who had received PD connected with national educational…

This article describes an extended program of research in sheltered instruction and the effects on the academic literacy development of English language learners. It also highlights the challenges of scaling up an instructional intervention. The intervention was the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) Model, an approach that teaches…

Every public school teacher's professional career will eventually come to an end, but the natural process of reflecting on one's career will last the rest of his/her life. When that time arrives to reflect, the author would like to have good memories and extreme pride of accomplishment both for himself and his students. As most people know,…

Leadership by teachers is essential to serving the needs of students, schools, and the teaching profession. To that end, the Teacher Leadership Exploratory Consortium has developed Teacher Leader Model Standards to codify, promote, and support teacher leadership as a vehicle to transform schools for the needs of the 21st century. The Teacher…

This study examines the perceptions of teachers and other professionals of Team-Teach behaviour support training in New Zealand. Analysis of course evaluations, questionnaires, interviews and documents provide the findings. Comparisons are made with Team-Teach training in the UK and similarities and differences between New Zealand training…