During the author's first year of teaching, she connected with her students and their families but hardly talked with anyone outside her grade level, which is kindergarten. As she started her second year of teaching, she reached out to communicate with other professionals. She also became a part of the Afterschool Matters Practitioner Research…

Solutions to the pressing environmental problems of our time include a shift towards more sustainable ways of living, and in this, education is recognised as having an important role. It is expected that if sustainability is addressed in teacher education, its prevalence in schools will also increase. However little has been reported regarding how…

And so a middle school language arts teacher begins her Saturday. Before coffee, Facebook. In this themed issue on professional development in an era of nick.com, the authors propose that teachers' new literacy learning is as close as their own screens. Teachers, too, live literate lives online in this new age of composition, with impulses to…

Since the Public Law 94-142 was enacted in 1975, there has been a push for inclusive classes where students with disabilities are educated along with their peers without disabilities in the least restrictive environment (LRE). The general physical education (GPE) teacher is obligated to ensure that all students are successful in their classes.…

There are many views about what types of actions can or cannot be defined as mentoring. The author opines that educators often make it much more complicated than it needs to be. At its core, mentoring is the act of listening, of asking good questions, and of probing others to more clearly articulate their ideas. Mentoring also involves challenging…

The academic success of any school depends on its teachers. However, relatively little research exists on the qualities principals value in teacher hiring, and we know almost nothing about charter school principals' preferences. This article addresses this gap in the literature using survey results for a matched sample of charter and traditional…

Teacher education can provide opportunities for contributing towards a re-envisaging of the teaching and learning of mathematics in the primary classroom. This study documents the experiences of one student teacher who, during her mathematics education courses, embraced a perception of mathematics as a social, creative and experiential discipline.…

An instructor tried using connectivism to teach an online graduate Education course called Teaching in a Virtual World. As a way to embody the many connections inherent in the group, all members of the class created and taught modules of their own choosing to each other. The instructor and two former students reflected together online in depth…

The induction program to provide support for novice teachers was introduced into teacher education in Estonia in 2004. The teachers who participated in the first program have now been working for several years. To evaluate the effectiveness of induction activities, we explored how mentoring and an induction program influence teachers' opinions…

There are many factors for teachers to use computer technology in their classrooms. The goal of this study is to identify some of the important factors contributing the teachers' use of computer technology. The first goal of this paper is to discuss computer self-efficacy. The second goal is to explain teaching experience. The third goal is to…

Sixty pre-service teachers were surveyed about their confidence, concerns, and efficacy for inclusive classroom teaching before and after a course on inclusive education. Some students experienced a practicum in an inclusive setting alongside the coursework, and some students did not. Both groups made significant gains in all dependent variables…

The purpose of this study was to document four novice secondary teachers' experiences as they progressed from the last year in their teacher education program through their first three years of teaching. Autobiographies, interviews, and focus groups were conducted to record their stories as novice teachers. In addition to the development of their…

The purpose of this mixed research study was to examine mentoring experiences specific to grade span through the perspective of principals, mentors, and mentees. An instrument containing items on demographics, administrative support, and mentoring program components was administered to first-year teachers (n = 998), mentors (n = 791), and…

With increased attention focused on the economic cache afforded through literacy and numeracy skills, governments around the world have turned their attention to developing the expertise of their teachers. Improving teachers' levels of competency leads to improvement in student achievement. In this qualitative case study, we focus on the…

The teaching brain is a new concept that mirrors the complex, dynamic, and context-dependent nature of the learning brain. In this article, I use the structure of the human nervous system and its sensing, processing, and responding components as a framework for a re-conceptualized teaching system. This teaching system is capable of responses on an…