This paper reports on a research project to identify school program criteria producing the highest teacher stress levels for three new middle schools. The middle-school environment embodies specific concepts endemic to educating adolescents. The new middle schools opened with teachers who were unfamiliar with both middle-school concepts and with…

Urging teachers of poetry writing to better understand themselves as writers and readers, this book "interrogates" a strategy teachers might employ in reading and evaluating student poems. A thoughtful study of a teacher is presented while in the process of evaluating student poetry through the lenses of four different contemporary…

A study explored the prospects for systemic reform by examining how four Michigan elementary school teachers make sense of and respond to recent subject matter reforms in reading, writing, and mathematics. The teachers, recommended by district supervisors as teachers who were engaging reforms in their classrooms, were interviewed and were observed…

This report summarizes a study in which social studies teachers were surveyed to discover teachers' attitudes towards computers, teacher access to computers, teacher use of computers, the types of computer programs used by teachers, and the perceived need for computer training. A national sample of social studies teachers (n=405) was surveyed as…

Too often, many adult educators are unaware of the problems resulting from failing to maintain an appropriate "professional distance" from their adult basic education (ABE) or English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students when those students encounter personal problems or crises that appear to be interfering with their learning. ABE…

This case study using pseudonyms was prepared for class discussion in training teachers and administrators who have some responsibility for building-level policy. Big Mountain is a well-established, comprehensive high school that served over 1,450 students in grades 10-12. Considerable autonomy is given to teachers, who have control their teaching…

Recommendations are presented for dealing with difficult students and the questions they ask during classroom discussions. Brief ideas are provided for handling argumentative individuals, long-winded questioners, and questions for which the instructor does not have a good answer. A discussion of curved or loaded questions (pseudoquestions)…

Originally presented to a high school faculty surveyed on student cheating, this paper serves as a teachers' guide to preventing cheating and dealing with cheating incidents. An introduction cites figures indicating that cheating is widespread and urges teachers to impress upon students the seriousness and offensiveness of cheating. The first part…

A survey of student and teacher attitudes toward instructional media in southwestern Michigan is described. (PF)

A total of four approaches to teacher preparation in classroom discipline, including Gordon's Teacher Effectiveness Training, Adlerian-based approaches, Glasser's Reality Therapy, and Canter's Assertive Discipline, are reviewed in this document. These systems have been widely used for inservice teacher education for a decade or more, and each has…

All incidents of crying that occurred in a preschool setting were recorded along with the responses of other children and teachers. After pilot observations had been carried out for 3 hours at each of 20 preschool and day care centers, detailed observations were made at a single site, four hours per day, twice a week, from late fall to mid-spring.…

Several factors have been identified that influence a teachers' use of curriculum materials. This paper focuses on the development of materials as a key factor in this process. Clarification is given on how a sophisticated design of curriculum materials can improve curricular implementation processes and outcomes. An overview of the implementation…

This pamphlet presents a series of tips for teachers to use in establishing classroom discipline. The first 11 tips provide guidance for the teacher in the use of language to maintain discipline: (1) be specific and clear; (2) be simple, brief, and to the point; (3) state directions positively; (4) use hard-line phrases selectively; (5) offer…

Part of a series of instructor training modules on related subjects instruction for apprentices, this booklet deals with communicating with apprentices. The first chapter consists of an outline of the scope and content of the instructor training modules as well as a self-assessment pretest. Covered in the module are identifying aspects of good…

In early computer assisted instruction (CAI), negative feedback often insulted students and/or provided no useful knowledge. In classroom settings, teachers use the following approaches in dealing with students' wrong answers: (1) ask the question again, louder and slower; (2) ask the question again, using different words; (3) back up and reteach…