People who are blind or visually impaired have experienced employment rates of around 30% for decades despite legislation to improve educational outcomes and ban discrimination in employment. It is imperative to study existing comprehensive programs for these students and to understand leadership roles which provide support and lead to continuous…

While professional development has been emphasised in many countries, few comparative studies have examined the degree of teachers' participation in professional development and its effect on teachers. Using the TIMSS 2007 data, this study analyses to what extent teachers participated in professional development in 50 TIMSS countries and examines…

This study explored teaching and learning relationships that positively impacted on student learning and engagement, with a particular focus on the nature and impact of wairuatanga (spirituality) on the teaching and learning process. Located within a Wananga (a Maori indigenous tertiary education organization) context, researchers used a…

One could argue that attitudes, knowledge, beliefs, and differing definitions and perceptions can all affect science teachers' motivation to engage in inquiry practices. Better understanding what motivates science teachers' instructional behaviors can result in improved efforts by researchers to align their instruction with quality inquiry-based…

Guided by Rhetorical and Relational Goals Theory, this study examined college students' preferences for effective teaching behaviors and characteristics. Students (n = 209) articulated qualities in their ideal instructor by prioritizing 10 instructional behaviors and characteristics from the rhetorical and relational traditions (assertive,…

This study examines teachers' discussions in a professional development setting to understand the ways in which learning a mathematics learning trajectory may change aspects of their discourse about students as learners. Using mixed methods, we bring together two theoretical frames that use a Vygotskian perspective on learning to analyze…

The interplay between student and teacher expectations about the requirements for successful learning in higher education (HE) can impact on successful student outcomes. This study aims to identify and understand the expectations that first year university students have towards essay production during their acculturation to HE. By examining the…

This multiple case study was used to explore students' perceptions of what constitutes verbal feedback and what impacts their receipt and use of feedback. Interpretivist research was undertaken in a rural mixed secondary school in Cornwall, UK involving four year nine students (aged 13-14 years) from two separate classes over eleven weeks.…

In this article, the authors report on a small-scale study set in a context of a firstyear mathematics education course for preservice primary teachers. Professional documentation from three different sources were analysed in relation to the national document "Tataiako: Cultural Competencies for Teachers of Maori Learners," which was…

Graphics presented alongside expository science texts can have a number of positive effects for instruction, including facilitating engagement, arousing interest, and improving understanding. However, because students harbor expectations about which contexts are likely to support better understanding, the mere presence of graphics also has the…

The purpose of this article is to explore how pedagogical visions inform our work as former classroom teachers and current teacher educators in rural and urban regions of the United States. Specifically, we explore the instructional decisions we make as we work to meet these visions in higher education. Teacher educators are charged with the task…

Using a students' workshop as a laboratory, this article summarises the observation of three years' implementation of a new study module for a Bachelor Program in Engineering Design (Interior and Furniture Design) at the University of Forestry, Sofia, Bulgaria. The article offers an analysis of group dynamics and the difficulties and issues…

Purpose: Against the backdrop of a new governance regime of schools in Austria, which combines policies of decentralisation and school autonomy with an accountability program of standardised outcome control, this article explores how the so called "agents of change"--teachers and headteachers--take up these ideas and corresponding…

This 1-year qualitative study examined the ways in which nine social justice-oriented teachers in racially segregated schools defined and fostered sympathy with low-income students of color. These teachers reportedly defined sympathy on the basis of caring and high expectations, which challenged traditional notions of sympathy as a teacher cue for…

Background: Cognitively impaired patients often present poor oral health status that may be explained by ethical tensions in oral healthcare management. This participatory study explored such tensions among adults with intellectual disabilities and with caregivers. The second objective was to specify, with caregivers, the points that should be…