One way for principal interns to reflect on their own learning during the internship experience is through the use of written journals, which can also provide their supervisors with valuable information regarding the interns' professional growth as well as the effectiveness of the internship program itself. However, the organization and assessment…

Parents comprise a key stakeholder group of public education that can exert significant influence over school policy, budget, and instructional decisions. Restricting this group's participation in school reform jeopardizes the success of any innovation, no matter how promising. This may be occurring with block scheduling. This research describes…

A fifty million dollar grant program for history education was announced by the United States Department of Education in April 2001. To many in the profession it was almost inconceivable that the study of history would receive such generous funding. While historians were convinced of the merits of improved history education, they had to ask what…

Libby Zimmerman, an early childhood consultant, explores the negative stereotypes of only children and reflects on her experiences being an only child and raising an only child. Despite decades of research pointing to the contrary, there is still a lingering suspicion that only children are spoiled, asocial, and maladjusted. The author traces the…

Case study data from six primary schools are drawn upon to examine the reality of primary headteacher leadership. Three alternative theoretical models of leadership are used to analyse the ways in which it has changed since the Education Reform Act (1988) and the implications of these changes for leading teaching and learning. Prior to 1988…

Faculty in post-secondary institutions must continually reassess, refine, and revise their teaching, yet it is a challenge for them to gain this professional development with heavy teaching responsibilities and high demands on their time. Creating Optimum Learning Environments (CREOLE) is a collaborative project between one community college and…

This study evaluated the manpower-training program for teaching personnel in mid-western Nigeria by the National Teachers' Institute. Overall, 240 participants involved in the training program who were randomly selected from the area constituted the sample for the study. A questionnaire designed by the authors was the major instrument used for…

As higher education and universities become a more mainstream interest in society, pressures mount to invent new curricula and new and more appropriate ways to support the curriculum invention process. This article offers an account of the experiences of one such double-barrelled invention process associated with a Graduate Diploma in Legal…

Although there are a million reasons why some schools do not work, there is one thing that Breakthrough High Schools (BTHS) have in common: a principal who has a focused vision that is based on the needs of his or her school and district and an ability to rally the troops and move the school away from the herd. The principal's ability to carefully…

Educators are bombarded with data from all directions, but to effect change in the education field, they must be able to determine what key information and data are needed, understand how to use what they have learned from the data, and then use what they have learned to improve overall student achievement. Collecting and using data has become an…

In this article, a number of scientific schools of thought and research results are reviewed and found to show the importance of identifying the existential attributions of teachers. Important points of anchor are existential phenomenology and symbolic interactionism, the approach to organizations as emotional arenas, social-psychological…

This article presents the reports from the international research correspondents (IRCs) on the topic of teacher preparation through an informal polling using a questionnaire, consisting of 10 items related to the issue of teacher preparation, in eight countries. The participating IRCs include: (1) Jan Turbill of Australia; (2) Shelley Peterson of…

When testing dominates decisions about instruction in public schools, complex interactions significant to how students actually learn are often ignored. Teachers who critically interrogate conflicts between institutional policies and practices, such as testing and instruction, position themselves as informed, active, and professionally responsible…

This paper takes up two important issues in the professional development of university teachers: the controversy surrounding reflective inquiry and its purported benefits for professional development and the lack of research on what teachers learn from reflective inquiry and how that affects and/or changes their professional practice.…

In its recent report on the Graduate Teacher Programme (GTP), an employment-based route to Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) in England, the Government's Office for Standards in Education found that, although almost all trainees meet the standards required to qualify, too often they do so at an adequate level, rather than achieving the high levels of…