This study aimed to explore the timing and strategies of teacher participation in children's play and the factors which have a bearing on teacher participation. This study used qualitative research and conducted observation of natural situations. The samples were preschool teachers in an elementary school's affiliated kindergarten in Hualien. The…

Rural school districts across the nation, with their limited resources, face daunting challenges posed by the implementation of the Common Core State Standards. This article presents a recent study of 13 rural school districts in the Central Valley of California and how these districts are responding to those challenges. A total of 352 teachers…

This essay raises questions about the future of information literacy in higher education, given the prevalence of the "Information Literacy Competency Standards" in the library profession for the past 15 years, and the heated debate that took place regarding whether the "Framework for Information Literacy" and the…

This chapter provides an overview of key principles and practices in executive coaching. Coaching is discussed as a reflective learning opportunity and offers the theoretical grounding, strategies, and case studies for each of four key elements of a coaching engagement.

Education research provides a range of curricular reform options that can lead to improved student course outcomes. These options can appear easy to implement with the hope of immediate increases in student learning. In 2006 the Ithaca College Physics Department went down this path by moving all of their 100-level courses out of lecture halls and…

For the past 12 years, the author has worked with peer coaches in more than 40 countries, and has seen schools where peer coaches have collaborated with colleagues to improve teaching and learning in classrooms across the school. In other schools, coaches have played a critical role in creating a culture of collaboration that helps build the…

As the face of education and the demands on teachers continues to change in the 21st century, so does the role of the literacy coach in schools across the country. This article explores the changing roles and responsibilities of literacy coaches by sharing the results of a study of 270 literacy coaches around the country. In this article, we share…

In this study, we investigated how early numeracy skills develop in kindergarten-age children. The participants were 235 Finnish children (111 girls and 124 boys). At the time of the first measurement, the average age of the children was 6 years. The measurements were conducted three times during 1 year of kindergarten. We used a between-group…

In order to achieve success, there is little doubt that sport coaches must overcome a plethora of challenges beyond simply designing and implementing effective training schedules and competition strategies. The United States high school interscholastic sports environment is no different. The purpose of this short essay is to provide a personal…

Purpose: This study aims to explore the competencies needed by performance consultants, a particular role identified for training and development professionals. The role was formally named and promoted nearly two decades ago. Two ongoing discussions in the field are the competencies needed by training and development professionals and the role of…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for studying organizational learning, firm innovation and firm financial performance. Design/methodology/approach: This paper examines the effects of organizational learning on innovation and performance among 287 listed Chinese companies. Findings: The results indicate a positive…

Authentic assessment is important in formal and informal learning. Technology has the potential to be used to support the assessment of higher order skills particularly with respect to real life tasks. In particular, the use of mobile devices allows the learner to increase her interactions with physical objects, various environments (indoors and…

Student evaluation of teaching (SET) is carried out every semester at Malaysian universities and lecturers are evaluated based on student ratings. But very little is researched about what lecturers actually think about SET and whether it serves any meaningful purpose at all. This quantitative study involving six public universities on the East…

The current study sought to identify and analyze how Black deaf and hard-of-hearing people conceptualize their deaf and hard-of-hearing identities. That is, what cultural and linguistic factors are involved and how do they interact? An existing measure of Deaf cultural identity, the Deaf Acculturation Scale (DAS), was used to evaluate these…

This study used exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to verify a theoretical structure for high school concert band performance and to test that structure for viability, generality, and invariance. A total of 101 university students enrolled in two different bands rated two high school band performances (a "first"…