What is the difference between a professional who can adapt to changing classroom conditions, make helpful decisions, and support student learning, and one who knowingly escalates conflict? Drawing from Redl and Wineman's book "Controls from Within," the authors examine adult counteraggression and describe characteristics of a reflective…

Although U.S. schools typically express commitment to preparing students for the responsibilities of democratic citizenship, most American youth are socialized for adult civic life by an institution that defines them as passive and subordinate and treats them in ways that are anything but democratic. In contrast to such counterproductive…

Evidence suggests that adults in school settings are doing less than they should to stop student peer sexual harassment. When such behavior persists, it creates an intrusive environment that may interfere with learning. The study was designed to determine teachers' attitudes toward sexual harassment; their perceptions of sexually harassing student…

This paper looks at Ofsted and particularly special measures regimes as part of a disciplinary mechanism. It examines issues such as school effectiveness theories, the increasing powers of Ofsted, and life under special measures and links it to performativity, discipline and surveillance using the metaphor of the panopticon. The change in…

New learning theory, underpinning the idea of teaching for self-directed learning, provides new conceptions of learning: the self-regulation of learning, the construct-character of knowledge, the social nature of learning and a dynamic model of intelligence. What conceptions teachers hold may be related to their tolerance of uncertainty. We…

This paper describes the use of handheld computers in the Science classrooms of four Tasmanian schools over a year. Analysis was informed by theories of innovation and assisted by ecological perspectives. Teachers demonstrated a range of attitudes to innovative pedagogies associated with the devices, and these corresponded to student achievements.…

Understanding the interaction between internally constructed and externally imposed aspects of the teaching context may be the missing link between calls for school reform and teachers' interpretation and implementation of that reform. Although the context of the local school culture has a profound impact on teachers, there are other external…

Teachers are often ill-prepared to manage classrooms in urban schools. In the present study, an empirically-based behavioral management strategy, the Good Behavior Game (Game), was investigated. The effects of the Game on student behavior and teacher response statements, including praise, were examined. A teacher with 22 students in a first grade…

This paper identifies the kinds of conceptual metaphors one composition instructor has used in commenting on student papers, notes whether or not they are commonly used by most writing instructors, and briefly states why metaphors can be effective feedback for students. The paper lists the 6 categories of metaphors as: (1) adherence, (2) building,…

The study described here identified and quantified the primary reasons why college or university student newspaper advisers quit. Members of College Media Advisers, a national organization of college and university advisers, were sent surveys. A total of 233 of 449 members returned the surveys, for a response rate of 52%. Respondents indicated…

Written responses to student writing assignments often can take the form of being directives which seem to try to control the student, and student response to such directive comments appears ambivalent. A logical question concerning such modes of response is to ask how a teacher's comments are influenced by his or her personality type. A study was…

This study investigated 140 New York State public elementary and secondary schools to determine the extent to which teacher perceptions of effective schools correlates as determined by the New York State Education Department are associated with student achievement, when student background variables are used as controls. The State Education…

The major finding of the study was that both male and female students, regardless of their locus of control, gained more on the achievement measure under internal teachers than under external teachers. (Author)

A study investigated how elementary teachers use literature in their classrooms, focusing on what instructional philosophies drive elementary literature programs; elementary teachers' knowledge of children's literature; and which books are being read to children and which books they are reading on their own, so that their "literary"…

This report summarizes the statewide evaluation of Utah's year-round and extended-day schools, two scheduling models developed to expand the capacity of existing school facilities to serve the needs of a burgeoning student population in some Utah school districts. When asked about their family's experience with year-round education, a substantial…