High school dropout rates in many major urban settings in the United States have remained above 50% for more than three decades. This dropout crisis should now be considered evidence of an endemic lack of appreciation for formal education in city locales. United States federal policy initiatives have concentrated the nation on notions of teacher…

Distance Educational Practice is today supported by a range of information systems (IS) design theories. Still, there are surprisingly few strong pedagogical ideas and constructs that are communicated across distance educational institutions. Instead it is often the technology, the software and the medium that is at the centre of attention as we…

This action research case study examines evidence of deeper learning principles as purposefully designed and evidenced in an online course and corroborated by the Distance Education Learning Environments Survey instrument. Findings indicate that even when deeper learning principles are used to design learning activities, other factors interact…

This paper describes a program for using higher order thinking skills to improve reading comprehension. The targeted population consists of seventh- and eighth-grade junior high school students in a stable middle class community, located in a southwestern suburb of Chicago. Reading comprehension difficulties were documented through data obtained…

Recent calls for collaborative efforts appear to be aimed at universities doing a better job at supporting school-improvement efforts. This paper describes outcomes of a project in which university faculty supported and trained local administrators and teachers at one school in the use of collaborative action research to improve teaching and…

Over the last decade, there have been rapid developments in field methodologies within participatory approaches to rural and agricultural development. At the same time, the use of "soft systems" methodologies for bringing potentially conflictual or disparate actors together for action has spread from the business world to other applications. These…

This paper describes a study in which one specific form of follow-up, the action plan, was used to assess the effectiveness of a teachers' course with 15 German teachers of English and offers an evaluation of the plan's potential as a program evaluation instrument. The course was taught for 20, 1.5 hour sessions, in the mornings; afternoons were…

This study sought to analyze the process of learning to teach a course in educational psychology, focusing on the role of experience and expertise in facilitating or inhibiting the process. Using action research methodology, correspondence between the instructor and a colleague on the process of learning to teach the course was analyzed to examine…

This publication contains reports on six research projects proposed, developed, and conducted by teachers in their own classrooms. The projects were conducted during the 1995-96 school year. The projects are: (1) "M..M..M..Math (Making More Meaning out of Math)" (Naomi Rose); (2) "Effect of Student Achievement as a Result of Individualized Use of…

School discipline and behavior management is an area of considerable contest in educational policy formation. Additionally, educators have a greater responsibility to engage in more rigorous theorizing as a first step to more useful research. The first part of this paper distinguishes between "discipline" as a discourse of management and…

An action research project designed and evaluated the effectiveness of an instructional strategy to improve the writing of all secondary students (particularly African-American males) in the Webster Groves, Missouri school district. The first year was devoted to an intensive study of African American culture and literature. A list of six…

This paper reports on an action research project focusing on curricular interventions for improving geographic knowledge and application skills in elementary students. The targeted population consists of third- and fourth-grade students in a middle-class community in southwest suburban Chicago. The deficiency of geographic literacy was documented…

This book presents a series of case studies in higher education which demonstrate how teams of academics have improved their practice, skill and conditions of learning and teaching through "action research." Action research is defined as collaborative critical enquiry by academics themselves into their own teaching practice, into problems of…

Presenting classroom experiences and a process to help writing teachers see their own hard-to-reach students with new eyes, this book tells the story of a 6-year action research project committed to building classroom environments where cultural differences are affirmed and high achievement is fostered among all students. The book notes that the…

The difficulty students have in transferring what they have learned to "real life" situations is emerging as a major problem. This action research project examined the impact of an intervention to improve transfer of learning by means of student journals and projects, and graphic organizers. Participating in this research were 68…