While efforts have been made in the last two decades to educate professionals about the nature of assistive technology (AT) devices, successful implementation of technology is impossible without the support and provision of appropriate AT services. The current investigation, designed and conducted by the National Assistive Technology Research…

It would be difficult to imagine any first-year teacher had aspirations of becoming a weak teacher. Most individuals hired as teachers have the ability to do a good job and want to do a good job. So how is it that some become ineffective? The authors contend that school leaders make them that way. Consider this preposterous notion: School leaders…

Objective: Education is becoming a recognized career path in psychiatry. Yet, there are few published accounts of how to create sustainable structures within departments to support this academic focus. The authors document the creation and 5-year progress of the Research Innovation and Scholarship in Education (RISE) program at the largest…

A peripatetic is one who journeys hither and thither. Many people can claim that title by just describing a domestic day. In the context of the Mid-Western Educational Research Association (MWERA) conference theme, the globalization of the teacher education experience, the author defines a peripatetic as one who journeys hither and thither…

Action learning sets are used by Lancaster University Management School's Institute for Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development to provide business support to owner managers of small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs). This paper compares the experiences of participants and facilitator of two programmes: one part of a wider programme of…

Teaching national history in school generates significant public anxiety and political debate--as the various "history wars" around the world reveal. For many school students, however, studying their nation's past is dull and repetitive. Such lack of interest has been confirmed by surveys and research reports that reveal alarmingly low…

This article will map the process of collaborative professional enquiry in an attempt to make sense of the structural elements evident in creating a "Community of Collaborative Professional Enquiry" (CCPE). At the heart of each CCPE examined was a collaborative, improvement-focused intervention that was designed and implemented by…

In order to stay current within their field, many professionals regularly attend conferences and training events in distant locales. Travel to these conferences costs professionals, and their sponsor organizations, both time and money. In the past the benefits afforded by these conferences, and the lack of comparable alternatives, have provided…

The development, publication, and distribution of the "Standards for the 21st-Century Learner" once again demonstrate the vision of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) in pointing the way with new literacies (textual, media, digital, technology) for students. These standards include critical self-assessment strategies that will…

Objective: Assessing professionalism in medical education poses many challenges. The authors discuss common themes and principles in managing professionalism in medical education. Methods: The authors review the development of standards of professionalism in medical education. They define educational goals for professionalism and also discuss the…

The purpose of this study was to examine how an experienced teacher learned to mentor as she attended ongoing professional development and worked with first- and second-year teachers across one school year as part of a university/district pilot induction partnership program. The mentoring component emphasized mentoring that was both responsive to…

This paper argues that school professionals' attitudes to continuing professional development (CPD) fall into identifiable types, which influence their involvement with CPD. In order to consider appropriate support for staff to take up relevant CPD, this paper aims to identify what these attitudes are. To this end, a model developed as an outcome…

This article centers on a professional development project with a group of high school mathematics teachers in Barcelona. The eight participating teachers taught in low-income schools with a high percentage of immigrant students. Our model of professional development is based on the involvement of the teachers as co-researchers of their local…

This paper features a case study of one US K-8 school district pioneering the use of "lesson study," a teacher professional development approach adapted from Japan. The case explores events that occurred in the district over more than 4 years (Spring 2000-Fall 2004) as lesson study spread nationally and within the district. We document four…

This article presents a study conducted by the author about teaching artists. Ninety-three working teaching artists were surveyed about their working conditions as well as their overall experience of being a teaching artist. In addition to the survey, ten teaching artists were drawn from the surveyed sample and were interviewed at length. Both…