Drawing on one educator's experiences as a beginning professor, the article discusses the prospects of teacher education reform and beginning teachers as change agents, commenting on values conflicts within schools of education and between them and broader university communities, politics of epistemology, and reward structures in schools of…

Presents data from an eight-year longitudinal study of the development of teachers' thinking about behavior, development, learning, and teaching. The case discussed illustrates thinking at Level five, "integrated constructivism," in which learning is problem solving and teaching is guiding thinking. Suggestions for encouraging continued…

Reflects on the experiences of an American teacher of a Japanese university education course that focused on reading selected works by Western educators and on alternative models of education. Includes student responses to class readings, nontraditional education, educational philosophy, and the value of academic freedom. (LP)

Examines cover letters, curricula vitae, and teaching statements of 82 doctoral candidates and 74 Ph.D. applicants for an assistant professor position. Discovers that all of the applicants presented very little teaching information. Discusses reasons for this and offers recommendations for correcting the problem. (MJP)

Reports an 18-month ethnographic study of mentoring in two Canadian primary classrooms. Videotapes of student teachers' practices and audiotapes of coaching conversations with their mentors suggested that the contexts of mentoring structured the student teachers' experiences and that the mentors' practices resembled their teaching practices.…

Develops a unit to help elementary school children revive the spontaneous bright color painting qualities of their preschool years. After observing book illustrations and Henri Rousseau's work, second grade students created compositions outlined in black paint and then used felt-tipped markers instead of paint to color in the shapes. (KM)

Compares the impact of two types of early field experiences on prospective teachers' attitudes, beliefs, and dialect-speaking elementary school children. Assesses student teachers' perceived helpfulness of field-based experiences, theoretical orientation for reading instruction, and attitudes toward dialect speakers. Advocates an immersion-type…

Compares results of a current survey with an earlier one conducted in the United Kingdom to examine microcomputer use in primary schools. Highlights include the effect of experience; teacher training; influences on software use; individual versus group use; influences on cooperative behavior; teachers' aims in using microcomputers; and future…

Presents reanalysis of data from earlier reviews, particularly those by Hanushek (1981, 1986, 1989, 1991), on relationship between educational resource input and school outcomes when controlling for student characteristics such as socioeconomic status. Using different synthesis methods, analysis shows a positive relationship between resources and…

Outlines difficulties of introducing art critiques in the elementary classroom. Recounts how problems were overcome by providing focus and allowing students to decide which classmates should critique their work. Provides a structure for critiquing art that builds verbal and analytical skills as students proceed from kindergarten to grade six. (KM)

Researchers developed an analysis system to evaluate teachers' classroom cases, hypothesizing that the way teachers defined and ordered the standard components of narratives would reflect their pedagogical beliefs. Inservice and preservice teachers wrote four case narratives. Self-evident differences emerged between groups in the structural and…

Profiles a successful music course that provided instruction on the electric guitar, drums, and bass guitar, and helped expand the instrumental music program at Evergreen High School in Golden, Colorado. Highlights students' motivation and self-teaching, and the rock band competition that the course spawned. Includes an annotated list of…

Describes a long-term, critically oriented teacher-researcher group, noting troublesome issues and the group's attempts to expand teacher-researcher collaboration into daily education settings. The article includes personal narratives by the members, which stress the importance of a self-reflexive stance for collaborative research to accommodate…

Describes a method used at Boston College (Massachusetts) to teach graduate students how to teach. Graduate students present a course prepared by a faculty member resource person. Makes extensive use of learning groups in the classroom. Observes groups help relieve teaching stresses and method provides a helpful transition from teaching assistant…

A University of Sydney (Australia) study investigated novice and expert college faculty's concepts of teaching effectiveness, self-efficacy regarding teaching, and criteria for self-evaluation as teachers. Differences were found in all of these areas, and implications for achieving excellence in teaching are discussed. (Author/MSE)