Discusses using Donna Haraway's concept of affinity and affinity politics as a foundation for structuring collaborative pedagogy and feminist syllabi. Outlines the goals and assumptions of affinity-based pedagogy, and relates classroom experiences that illustrate its functioning. Notes the lessons that both students and teachers have taken away…

Presents findings from a survey of avocational teachers at the beginning and end of a three-year project to recruit and prepare volunteer teachers for a religious school. Reveals that participants joined to improve their children's education and enhance their own Jewish learning, and that the quality of the school improved. (DSK)

Finds that extended practicum experiences in elementary science teaching positively increases preservice science elementary teachers' (n=64) personal science-teaching-efficacy beliefs. Contains 17 references. (WRM)

Discusses elementary teacher education in Brazil, examining problems teacher educators face (e.g., lack of direct communication between theoretical studies and the practical world and lack of inclusion of practical knowledge and expertise developed by successful teachers). Current educational policies are discussed, looking at: implementation of a…

This article reports perceptions of a first-year teacher of students with learning disabilities. First-year challenges are described, as well as views on assessment, accountability, and inclusion. Recommendations are made for new teachers and steps that teacher educators, school administrators, and experienced teachers can take to ensure the…

Finland's Reformative In-Service Education for Teachers was a one-year program that joined experienced and novice teachers in promoting change. Research on the resulting development of teachers' cognitions and on factors crucial to that development highlighted changes in beginners' craft knowledge concerning students, learning, knowledge, and…

Examines the question of Russian teachers' attitudes toward the profession and toward the work in a specific educational institution. Finds that teachers' sense of social well-being results from the perception of their social position, whereas their sense of professional well-being is discussed in terms of self-assessment of personal and…

A teacher describes using some of the Foxfire core practices to teach a "last chance" program for students in grades 7-8 who were angry, oppositional, and defiant. After a cooperative classroom planning process in which counselors helped students articulate their ideas, the students began revealing their interests. These interests, in…

A high school teacher describes how her classroom methods changed from traditional teacher-centered pedagogy to the active and democratic involvement of students in developing their own learning communities. Sidebars describe class projects: an oral history project that blossomed into a "Forties Festival" with 1940s alumni and the…

In this article, the author discusses a partnership between Baylor University and the Waco public schools that embeds every teacher-candidate--from the freshman year on--into the K-12 system. To test whether professional-development schools, modeled after teaching hospitals, can be scaled up so that all of a college's teaching candidates--not just…

The purpose of this empirical study was to present a detailed description and interpretation of what happens in schools to beginning teachers who are prepared to enact reform-based practices in mathematics and science. The focus was on a select sample of graduates from the Maryland Collaborative for Teacher Preparation [MCTP], a statewide…

The purpose of this study was to assess whether burnout and personality were linked to the perceived severity of 24 undesirable student behaviors among experienced and trainee teachers. Results indicated that teaching experience, student gender, and type of behavior were important determinants of their perceptions. Burnout had a significant effect…

As learner-centred approaches are gaining popularity in many language classrooms, the affective dimensions of learners and the interaction effects of learners and teachers have become an important theme for research and assessment. This paper explores how Japanese learners of English as a foreign language evolve in two geographically distinct…

Southern California serves as the location for the incidents described in this article. An up-and-coming midsize "Christian" university, noted for its yearly rise in the "U.S. News: America's Best Colleges" to the top twenty-five universities of its size, locates and contextualizes these experiences along the author's journey.…

Peer evaluation has been criticized as a threat to academic freedom and has been used, usually erroneously, as a justification for academic reappointment, tenure promotion, and merit pay. In recent years, scholars have recommended that peer consultation, which is primarily designed to improve teaching, be honored, but apart from evaluation. In…