This guide for beginning teachers provides assistance in the following areas: (1) "Physical Environment and Materials" (e.g., room arrangement and bulletin boards); (2) "Setting Expectations" (e.g., rules and consequences and early parent communication); (3) "First Days of School" (e.g., activities and teacher daily…

"Looping" is an essentially simple concept: a teacher moves with his or her students to the next grade level, rather than sending them to another teacher at the end of the school year. This Digest explores the practitioners' perspectives on looping, the experience of European school systems, and research on looping. Practitioners report…

This book for children (ages 8 to 14) and accompanying teacher/parent guide presents the story of two sisters, one of whom has a physical disability, as they prepare to participate in a wedding. Information on the disability is deliberately presented subtly and incidentally to encourage the reader to relate more personally and foster a deeper…

Learning how to think is essential for children to grow into responsible citizens and contribute to society. Schools need curricula that support a variety of thinking strategies as students read, write, and study content-area subjects, and learn to evaluate and manage what they do. This book for teachers provides a framework for creating a…

This handbook combines gender equity theory with practical strategies and resources. It was designed to assist teachers and parents of primary-age children in their efforts to create a gender-equitable learning and growing environment. Part 1, "Gender Equity in the Primary Classroom," introduces and explains topics such as socialization of gender…

Noting the crucial role parents play in their child's academic success, this book offers parents guidance in supporting their child's education in the primary grades. The book's chapters are: (1) "Learning in the Early Grades," including questions parents ask, what 6- to 8-year-old children are like, principles that make learning effective, why…

The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES), launched in Spring 1997, is an integral part of Head Start's system of Program Performance Measures, an outcome-oriented accountability system examining the quality and effects of Head Start, by annually collecting data on a nationally representative sample of programs, classrooms,…

Cooperative learning involves students working in small groups or teams to help each other learn academic material. Cooperative learning strategies are organized, highly structured methods that usually involve formal presentation of information, student practice and coaching in learning teams, individual assessment of mastery, and public…

This paper reports on the interaction patterns of 12 6th-grade students who participated in a teacher research study on mathematical discourse, presenting data on teacher-student and student-student interaction patterns. It highlights how one white, female student's participation and attitudes changed from passive to less passive between 6th and…

This paper explores both the benefits and the difficulties of using the Project Approach in part-time early childhood education programs. Teachers of 3 different types of part-time programs share their experiences 1 year after taking a one-credit course in the Project Approach. The teachers' responses are organized by topic as follows: (1)…

This paper reports on research with a group of students in grades 3 and 4 who live on isolated grazing homesteads in the Australian desert in western New South Wales. The paper examines an alternative mode of delivery involving the application of satellite-based systems to provide a teaching-learning environment for these students. The trial of a…

This booklet answers common questions about special education and students with disabilities. It was developed in light of the movement toward inclusion, through which more students with disabilities (and students with more serious disabilities) are being assigned to general education classes. The 28 questions and answers are grouped into five…

A community college teacher of English as a Second Language (ESL) describes her personal experience in transferring teaching techniques learned at the School for International Training (SIT) (Vermont) to her own refugee ESL classes during the required interim year teaching practicum. An introductory chapter gives background information on the…

This paper examines the relationship between teaching style and gender. Faculty at the school of education in a mid-Southern university were asked to complete the Van Tilburg/Heimlich Teaching Beliefs Scale and a demographic profile. The response rate was 57 percent, with 47 percent of the replies from male teachers and 53 percent from female…

This paper explains how a World Wide Web site was designed to assist preservice teacher education students in reflecting upon their learning and to assist a teacher educator to reflect upon his teaching in university classes. The students reflected on their learning experiences in university classes using a three-phase reflective framework: (1)…