This study compared the time use and perceptions of schools, teachers, and friends of approximately 290 demographically matched students in Montessori and traditional middle schools. We used the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) and questionnaires and conducted multivariate analyses showing that the Montessori students (a) reported more positive…

Planned educational change occurs regularly throughout the world. With the enormous political change the 1994 elections brought to South Africa, a complete change in education policies was called for. The new Curriculum 2005 (C2005; Department of Education, RSA, [1997]) embraced new teaching and learning approaches such as outcomes-based education…

At Coppin State University, a historically Black university, nearly 120 ninth-graders are enrolled in the Coppin Academy. The academy is one of nearly a dozen such innovative school partnerships nationwide, aiming to apply study results that suggest that African-American students may perform better in smaller, more personalized learning…

In 1966, traditionally White colleges and universities were admitting more Black students than ever because of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which banned discrimination in education. However, the climate on most campuses was decidedly inhospitable to the newly arrived Black students. Thus, there grew a desire to create a political group that…

This chapter examines changes in preservice and continuing teacher professional development that are aimed at addressing sexual minority issues in schools as students' learning places and teachers' workplaces. (Contains 1 note.)

Searching for ways to help students feel more connected to one another and to the school community as a whole, a junior high school implemented the social house approach. Social houses divide students into multiple social units, rather than into separate academic entities. Each unit has its own identity and theme.The different groups mix during…

By 2050, Latinos will account for 25 percent of the U.S. population. Despite their increasing numbers, many children of immigrants consider themselves members of a minority group in a way that negatively affects their behavior, school performance, and social integration. Educators need to develop a better understanding of the culture and issues…

This paper reports a phenomenographic investigation into students' experiences of learning through discussion--both online and face to face (F2F). The study context was a second-year undergraduate course in psychology for social work in which the teacher had designed discussion tasks to begin in F2F mode and to continue online. A combination of…

This article summarizes the findings and themes from the three high schools we studied. All three schools engaged in five schoolwide strategies for educating students with disabilities. They provided a broad array of academic courses and program options; provided schoolwide support structures that could be combined and customized to the needs and…

An emerging consensus exists in the school reform literature about what conditions contribute to student success. Conditions include high standards for academic learning and conduct, meaningful and engaging pedagogy and curriculum, professional learning communities among staff, and personalized learning environments. Schools providing such…

If web-based technology is increasingly becoming the central plank of contemporary teaching and learning processes, there is still too little evidence to suggest that it is delivering purposeful learning activities beyond its widely perceived potential as a learning resource providing content and learning objects. This is due in part to the…

An understanding of the hormonal basis of normal growth and development, including the changes occurring at puberty, is important foundation knowledge for contemporary medical practice in most fields of medicine. A quiz, testing the important physiological concepts of growth and puberty, was designed using the format of the well-known television…

Within the context of the Project on Learning (a 3-year research project under the direction of Professor Graham Nuthall), each of the authors of this paper participated in a series of classroom-based studies focussing on the experience of Years 5 and 6 students. The use of the extensive methodology, comprising audio- and video-recorded…

Successive national policy in England has striven to develop uses of information and communication technologies (ICT) to support teaching and learning, and has promoted the adoption of ICT in schools over a period of some 25 years (since the "Microcomputer in schools initiative" of 1981). The current level of deployment of ICT in schools…

In this article, the authors show how effective use of new technology can increase academic productivity and enhance educational quality in higher learning institutions. The authors sought to develop an instructional model that integrates information technology with faculty resources to enhance teaching and learning in the academic environment.…