Presents advice on how Montessori elementary teachers can create a vital arts program in the classroom. Promotes literacy in artistic language, the importance of visual observation, and the importance of teachers educating themselves. Provides a materials list and artwork suggestions for teachers, including creating a visual journal, drawing,…

Discusses differentiation in terms of the instructional program, school organization, staff development, and extensions beyond the classroom. Suggests learning activities with differing levels of cognitive challenge as vehicles for differentiated classrooms. Focuses curriculum on global citizenship and themes of identity, connections,…

Describes the conceptual framework for an urban Montessori high school in Holland in 1945. Includes information on implementing fundamental Montessori principles, scheduling, materials, organization of subject matter, use of group mentors, and democracy in school. Focuses on how the school increases adolescents' moral strength with living and…

Discusses teaching information literacy in academic libraries and describes programs developed at California State University that considered new technologies; changing student characteristics, enrollment patterns, and skills; determining authenticity and quality of information sources, particularly on the Internet; curriculum development;…

This paper is based on research conducted with indigenous students at a university in the Northern Territory. It examines crosscultural theories of education which explain the problems of teaching and learning in indigenous contexts in terms of the cultural mismatch between the home and school environment. These theories position the teacher as…

This article summarizes the findings of the National Research Council (NRC) report "On Evaluating Curricular Effectiveness" and examines the reviews in middle grades mathematics undertaken by the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC). The NRC report reviewed and assessed 147 key evaluations of 13 National Science Foundation-supported K-12 mathematics…

The purpose of this ethnographic study was to explore the development of belief systems as related to racial and ethnic identities of preservice teachers as they crossed cultural borders into science teaching. Data were collected throughout a yearlong teacher preparation program to learn how early life experiences and racial and ethnic identities…

This article is about one school district's effort to reform its elementary science curriculum through a program of professional development called Science, Parents, Activities and Literature (Science PALs). The differential exposure of the district's K-6 teachers to Science PALs and differences in how well teachers implemented Science PALs-type…

Teacher identity development and change is shaped by the interrelationship between personal biography and experience and professional knowledge linked to the teaching environment, students, subject matter, and culture of the school. Working from this framework, this study examines how beginning teacher interns who are part of an alternative route…

The Fannie Lou Hamer National Institute on Citizenship and Democracy is a coalition of friends who share a vision of the potential of education. Founded in 1997 at a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar for College Teachers, the Hamer Institute conducts seminars and workshops for K-12 teachers and students that feature the role…

The National Science Education Standards encourage teachers to approach their teaching in a spirit of inquiry--assessing, reflecting on, and learning from their own practice. In this article, the authors draw from their own experiences as science teacher-researchers and present practical guidelines for science teachers who want to learn more about…

As preservice teachers anticipate student teaching, they often experience excitement, for they realize they will soon be finished with their course work and out in a school all day, every day, for a semester. This excitement may be mixed with anxiety, however, especially if they have just completed an intensive field experience where they have…

By selecting appropriate reading materials, teachers can engage African American adolescent males with text, particularly students who have not mastered the skills, strategies, and knowledge that will lead to positive life outcomes. This approach takes into account students' four literacy needs--academic, cultural, emotional, and social--and…

In this column, the author relates her experience as a teacher in a K-12 school in Point Hope, Alaska, where most of the students spoke "village English," a form of nonstandard English mixed with the village's native language of Inupiaq. She relates how the students' reading test scores, which had been below the 25th percentile, were…

Many learners, especially those in a foreign-language setting, draw on the classroom as their primary forum for using and experiencing the target language, still for the most part during teacher-led instruction. Nevertheless, communicative language teaching does not provide a decisive definition of "good language use." Teachers usually take an…