Reports results of a year-long reflective coaching project involving a school district and a university. The project involved workshops on instructional techniques and peer coaching skills and 10 coaching cycles pairing a doctoral student coach and a teacher preparing to become a peer coach the following year. The program positively influenced…

Describes the use of paired experienced classroom teachers to form mentoring teams that teach one class, observe other master teachers, attend conferences, and prepare curriculum units, working out flexible schedules for teaching the class. Schools benefit from having two mentors without removing expert teachers from direct contact with students.…

Suggests that good teaching is not the successful execution of a teacher-directed plan but the collective weaving of personal knowledge and understanding teachers create with students in literacy experiences. (MG)

Shares personal experiences as a writing teacher, including advice he received and advice he now gives to beginning teachers. (MG)

Finds that experienced high school teachers become freer in the ways they use their content area textbooks, and that they are more likely to teach students how to use the text. Shows that in schools where teachers choose the textbooks, teachers make the most use of the textbook for assigned reading. (SR)

Presents an essay written soon after the author's return to the United States after teaching at a University in China at the time of the Tiananmen Square tragedy. Explores issues of teaching overseas and the reality of Americans being caught in the midst of political turmoil. Remembers sacrifices made by Chinese students and teachers to test the…

A survey of 304 graduate teaching assistants (TAs) concerning classroom management issues found: more U.S. TAs than international TAs reported experiencing classroom management problems; years of TA teaching experience were significantly and positively related to number of problems and concerns reported; and TA type, teaching experience, and…

Figures from the National Center for Education Statistics for 1993-94 show that most of the nation's 3 million teachers are female, experienced (over 40), and typically enjoy the support of their principals and colleagues. Fully 87% are Caucasian. Schools have yet to provide sufficient numbers of minority teachers. Most teachers would appreciate…

Focuses on the general anxiety changes in authority, convention, and tradition provoke in college faculty as a result of curriculum reform. Discusses an English department chair's personal experiences that were on her mind as she set about revamping an introductory fiction course. Offers her experiences as a cautionary tale about curriculum…

Chris Loynes relates his involvement in outdoor education and his views on its evolution, its status as a teaching method, the idea of adventure, program delivery, and teaching styles. He believes outdoor education contributes to larger debates on relationships between intellectualizing and experiencing, social order and personal freedom, liberal…

Presents an argument about the relationship of philosophy to teaching and the way each could inform and change the other. Rejects a metaphor of philosophy as a disconnected map for practitioners; argues that this is unhelpful and that a means of communication between the two areas must be found. (DSK)

Presents six educators' ideas for good activities for teaching world literature to high school students. Describes ideas, activities, and experiences with innovative ways to teach World Literature. (SG)

Describes a high-school journalism adviser's experience working at the Sports desk of the "Sacramento Bee" during one summer. Suggests the short-term job helped the author flesh out what it means to be a working journalist, and helped him take some of the passion, energy, and excitement of the professional newsroom back to his classroom.…

Shares insights of an English teacher gained through a variety of teaching experiences. Describes how the Bay Area Writing Project provided effective strategies to improve the teaching of writing. (NH)

Mentoring aids beginning teachers and gives veteran teachers a chance to pass the torch. However, mentors have little control over teaching assignments. Mentoring is one element of beginning teacher assistance and does not supplant other professional relationships that beginners have with their principal, department chairman, and curriculum…