This article documents an investigation into the nature of selected secondary English teachers' online participation across platforms (i.e., blogs, microblogs, social networking sites) as they explored issues related to teaching, learning, and literacy. Ethnographic content analysis of online artifacts generated over approximately 10 months…

Background: Persons with less severe disabilities are able to express their needs and show initiatives in social contacts, persons with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD), however, depend on others for this. This study analysed the structure of informal networks of persons with PIMD. Materials and Methods: Data concerning the…

This paper focuses on preschool teachers' use of online social networks for discussions about tablets in preschools. Posts initiating discussions (n = 465) were analysed to increase understanding of what questions tablets raise among preschool teachers and to understand online communication from a professional development perspective. Posts were…

This paper deals with the migration motives of German and Polish final semester students and university graduates in the partner cities of Bielefeld (GER) and Rzeszów (PL), who are on the threshold of their professional careers. The survey presented here was motivated by the question: are the current migration motives of highly-skilled graduates…

The author discusses the benefits of nontraditional assessments and shares how she has used them in her 5th-grade classroom in rural South Carolina. The examples include doing a Gallery Walk, writing poetry, integrating the arts into other subjects, having students reenact historical scenes, using social media, and rewriting popular songs with…

Academic plagiarism exists in all academic spheres, but contextual factors determine the level, intensity, and forms of it. Over the last few years, the phenomenon of "Ghost Authorship" has become widespread in Iran, and concerns have been expressed regarding this issue, not only by academicians but also by officials. In this study, 143…

When public charter schools first opened in the early 1990s, each was unique and independent. But as successful public charter schools continued to grow and expand their impact beyond a single site, and as organizations developed school designs that could be implemented at multiple locations, networks of public charter schools emerged. The public…

Although peer interaction takes on increased salience during adolescence, such social connections remain elusive for many high school students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This social isolation can be particularly prevalent within unstructured school contexts.In this study, we examined the effects of a lunchtime peer network intervention…

An Investigation of the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching and its Influence on Beginning Teacher Retention: A Companion Dissertation. Shook, Anna, 2015. Dissertation, Gardner-Webb University, Adult Learning Theory/Adult Developmental Theory/Professional Development/Beginning Teacher/North Carolina Center for the Advancement of…

The Reform Support Network has published "Support for Growth: How States Can Improve the Quality of Post-Observation Feedback" based on recommendations generated during a July 2014 Reform Support Network convening of leaders from nine States. It offers six strategies to accurately assess the performance of teachers and provide them with…

Using a qualitative interview approach, this study analyzes the experiences of women in academic leadership positions in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. An exploration of the extent of the relevance of Western research on female academic leadership is used to explain the experiences of female leaders in Kazakhstan. The results of the study are consistent…

Purpose: This study explores the positive and negative factors influencing transformational learning experiences of female leaders in women's leadership development programmes in sports and examines the differences in learning/change factors cited by those who successfully addressed them and those who failed. Design/methodology/approach: The study…

Students with severe disabilities often experience limited social participation and few friendships at school. We describe a project to equip school teams to implement peer support arrangements and peer networks focused on friendships, inclusion, and learning. We adopted a phenomenological qualitative approach to learn how participants viewed…

Semantic distance is a determining factor in cognitive processes, such as semantic priming, operating upon semantic memory. The main computational approach to compute semantic distance is through latent semantic analysis (LSA). However, objections have been raised against this approach, mainly in its failure at predicting semantic priming. We…

This study analyses the use of a group space on the social networking site Facebook as a way to facilitate research supervision for teams of learners. Borrowing Lee's framework for research supervision, the goal was to understand how supervision and learning was achieved in, and shaped by, the properties of a social networking space. For this…