Presents results of a study in which music teachers and students with varying levels of experience and expertise evaluated musical performances. Finds differences in subjects with high levels of expertise are a result of more than experience. Concludes that developing an accurate measure for expertise would aid in obtaining the best role models as…

Discusses how teachers learn to teach through direct experiences and participation as students and beginning teachers. Direct experience provides cause-and-effect inferences about what works; as time goes on, teachers use the knowledge acquired to improve their teaching. Strategies for school improvement work in much the same way. (SM)

Describes two kinds of relationships between the professional knowledge and personal practical knowledge of teachers and teacher educators, stating that (1) professional knowledge depends upon individual cognitive structures with the interaction between the two resulting in personal and idiosyncratic knowledge and (2) personal attributes affect…

Researchers compared thinking and decision making in expert and novice teachers. They analyzed audiotaped planning interviews, videotaped lessons, stimulated recall interviews, postteaching interviews, delayed self-reports, and printed materials and found striking differences between the mental representations of the two groups. The article…

Effects of a staff development program on the professional lives of four elementary school teachers were studied. The Teacher in Residence partnership of the University of Alabama brings experienced teachers to the college for terms as adjunct faculty, allowing them to clarify what they have known and recommit to teaching. (SLD)

Addresses the problem of getting to know one's students in a videotaping project in which classmates were videotaped as they introduced themselves and asked questions the students prepared for a guest speaker. Notes how students spontaneously worked as a team and enjoyed replaying the tape. Suggests project also improved results of the speaker's…

Describes how a journalism adviser with 17 years of teaching experience with students from middle- to upper-middle-class neighborhoods turned around a journalism program in a predominantly Hispanic high school. (RS)

Integrated portfolios can establish accountability for novice teachers and support professional development for novice and experienced teachers. Comprehensive portfolios for evaluating novices and critical incident portfolios for evaluating experienced teachers are described, and procedures for their review are discussed. Illustrations of their…

To determine beginning teachers' reactions to Florida's Beginning Teacher Program (BTP), a one-year teaching experience, education graduates who had experienced the BTP were surveyed. Participants were fairly positive regarding the support they received from the program, which may facilitate new teachers' adjustment to the teaching environment.…

This study found that 420 regular elementary and 359 special education teachers were similar in use of procedures to assist students with low achievement. Peer tutoring received the highest mean score by both groups, followed by cooperative learning. Differences in teaching practice are analyzed by age, grade level, and degrees obtained.…

After 18 years of using a traditional approach to teaching, a middle-school teacher turned her classroom into a shared learning experience by giving students the responsibility to make choices about their education. To reassure parents who were skeptical of the Foxfire approach, she continued to interject traditional learning activities. (LP)

Describes the popularity of a first grader who is put back into a kindergarten class due to poor reading skills. Notes how the kindergartners consider the new boy a window onto the first grade and marvel at his skills in various classroom activities. Reflects on the lessons learned about the caring, safe environment of the classroom community.…

Highlights an aspect of the highly gendered nature of 19th-century student teaching and focuses on how the female student teacher was constructed as a "problem." Two sections contextualize the female student teacher "problem" and the feminization of teaching, and analyzes attempts to contain or solve the problem. (DSK)

Data from 805 California high schools are used to examine teacher education and experience in relation to student dropout rates. Dropout rates tend to be higher where faculties include a greater percentage of minimally educated teachers or teachers with little experience. These relationships are independent of school size, student poverty, and…

Vivian Gussin Paley, teacher-researcher and author of "White Teacher" and "The Girl with the Brown Crayon," discusses her role as teacher, her elimination of the use of teaching guides, her use of tape recorders to collect classroom data, her unique teaching practices that connect children's play and stories with their…