Two teachers participating in professional development involving research were asked to read and respond, in light of their own teaching, to Lisa Delpit's study of the dilemma of progressive education versus teaching traditional skills to disadvantaged black students. The teachers' responses illustrate the importance of teachers' prior beliefs and…

Introduces a case written by two physical education teacher education instructors. Shows how case method directly impacts the teaching/learning process, explains how to facilitate discussions surrounding the case, offers sample student responses and instructor facilitation, and describes use of case teaching to promote reflection. (SM)

Describes an instructional innovation using field-based action research to enhance program quality and improve administrator preparation. Describes the learning experiences of graduate students enrolled in a supervision of instruction class while participating in a collaborative school/university project. Action research is a demanding strategy…

Describes a program in which prospective secondary mathematics teachers develop hypermedia stacks to demonstrate their understanding of important principles of mathematics, teaching, and learning. Discusses cooperative learning in small groups in methods courses and describes students' portfolios created during student teaching. (Author/LRW)

Teacher education programs are based on cultural and political assumptions about the processes involved in learning to teach and about what constitutes good teaching. A comparative study of teacher education in France, England, and Scotland examines differences in course structure, school placements, training support, professional educational…

Examines reading, writing, and mathematics for older primary children within the Montessori setting. Emphasizes normalization and engaging links with the prepared environment, focusing on how discovery moments in reading and contexts for learning around culture create natural conditions for learning. Asserts that the guided discovery approach…

Criticizes the National Commission on Social Studies in the Schools' report, "Charting a Course: Social Studies for the 21st Century," for its poor use of available social studies curriculum research and lack of citations of research sources. Argues that report views teachers as passive recipients of curriculum and fails to address…

Discusses studies done on science/technology/society (STS) education and lessons that may be drawn for teachers. Maintains that issue investigation and action-based units focusing on locally relevant and student-relevant issues are clearly supported and encouraged by STS research. (DB)

Questions past educational research and its effect on policy making and educational practice. Asks whether education is a scholarly pursuit, science, or art. Expresses concern that instruction of educational methods has a detrimental effect on knowledge of the field. Claims actual classroom teaching must be guided by research, a body of…

This article relates experiences of a sixth grade teacher who taught an undergraduate language arts methods course for a semester and a college faculty member who spent a year observing and teaching language arts methods to inservice teachers in six schools. Both focused on empowering teachers to make curriculum decisions. (IAH)

The pedagogical literature on the peer response group as a teaching method in the writing classroom is examined, within the context of current theories on teaching and learning of writing. The few empirical studies on the method are reviewed. Suggestions for reconceptualizing peer response to writing are provided. (TJH)

Describes a model self-improvement reading course for teachers incorporating the communications model, the skills model, and the sustained silent reading model. Concludes that basic reading skills instruction led to improvement in reading skills and that lesson plans incorporating course objectives were produced. (RS)

Compares belief systems of preservice and inservice teachers, focusing on whether the two groups make instructional choices based on their theoretical orientations. Finds that practices chosen by teachers with reader-based/holistic orientations reflected their beliefs, while the practices of teachers with mastery-of-skills orientations did not.…

Three psycho-educational principles are outlined (additive bilingual enrichment principle, interdependence principle, and sufficient communicative interactive principle) to illustrate research on the maintenance of Frisian among native speakers and the development of Frisian fluency among native Dutch speakers. (Author/CB)

A model of providing direct experience of group process for counseling students is provided. Ethical considerations, advantages, and disadvantages are discussed. (Author)