Tomlinson and Germundson compare teaching well to playing jazz well. Excellent teaching involves a blend of techniques and theory; expressiveness; syncopation; call and response, and, frequently, improvisation. Weaving in analogies to jazz, the authors delineate four elements of such teaching: curriculum that helps students connect to big ideas,…

Mental and substance use disorders are leading contributors to the burden of disease among young people in Australia, but young people experience a range of barriers to accessing appropriate treatment for their mental health concerns. The development of early intervention services that provide accessible and effective mental health care has the…

The Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) field continues to experience increased valuing of experiential practitioner knowledge. A welcome result of this evolution has been the broadening of research perspectives. The 16 practitioner narratives in "Insights on Teaching Speaking in TESOL" are written by…

The Doorways training program was designed by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Safe Schools Program (Safe Schools) to enable teachers, community members and students to prevent and respond to school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV). This booklet, "Doorways II: Community Counselor Reference Materials on…

Family-school partnerships are increasingly touted as a means of improving both student and school improvement. This recognition has led to an increase in policies and initiatives that offer the following benefits: improved communication between parents and educators; home and school goals that are mutually supportive and shared; better…

Based on the literature describing the boundary spanning role, a study focused on boundary spanning activities related to the public relations professional. Two major models, the adaptive and the selective, were examined in terms of key assumptions--economic rewards and competition. These models were further examined in terms of the larger…

This book is comprised of six case studies that were commissioned by the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching (NCREST) at Teachers' College, Columbia University, New York City, New York. Five elementary and one middle school from Kentucky, Florida, Indiana, South Carolina, and Maine are represented. They present a…

This study sought to establish the benefits of an analytic scoring procedure for assessing student performance in doing geometry proofs. Using the cognitive behavior theories of B. Bloom and the theories of J. G. Greeno about geometric knowledge, five criteria were established for assessing performance in proof. After a training session, 3 judges…

Constructionist learning is characterized by three principles: "learning-by-making,""holistic learning," and a freedom to choose learning styles. This paper describes a project with second grade homeschooling students that tested the feasibility of using HyperCard as a medium for constructionist learning. The "worlds"…

A study focused on a university-school collaborative research project on language assessment in the classroom context and the benefits of preservice teacher participation. Personnel from the Pennsylvania State University (including 20 preservice teacher education students), intermediate unit (Pennsylvania's regional service centers), and four…

Based on the premise that teachers are the chief condition in the literate classroom, and that one of the most important things children do is to observe the way adults think and learn, this book presents five essays suggesting methods of inviting children into the adult world of reading and writing. After a foreword by Donald Graves and an…

This paper presents findings of a study that examined teachers' and parents' attitudes toward teacher evaluation, particularly in regard to the usefulness of instruction-based instruments to measure holistic, integrated classroom practices. A pilot teacher assessment instrument was developed and field-tested at seven schools in which holistic…

The notion of educating and encouraging the whole child is not a new idea, but it awaits full acceptance. Strategies for teaching the whole child in a middle-school environment are presented here. The text opens with an overview of how schools have failed to use the latest ideas and technologies in educating students and how schools can draw on…

This pamphlet relates this quotation by R. Buckminster Fuller to the educational process: "To be optimally effective, undertake at outset the most comprehensive task in the most comprehensive and incisively detailed manner." The principle of synergy can be used to determine when something is "optimally effective." One example…

Free verbal responses to pictures as an indication of cognitive style were studied for 199 college students, at Eastern Kentucky University. The Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) was administered following presentation of the pictures, a series of colored pictures of simple, medium and complex configuration. Responses given to three graduate…