This document reports on a 2001 Australian summit on teacher standards, quality, and professionalism. This invitational activity included approximately 50 senior policymakers, researchers, and practicing teachers who participated in two workshops involving international experts. They identified where the profession should be in relation to…

This booklet describes the Elementary Mathematics through Teacher Partnerships (EMTTP) project in which the faculty at a K-6 elementary school and a few mathematicians and mathematics educators met regularly to talk about mathematics and teaching. This book illustrates how the partnership grew and learning occurred as a result. The difficulties…

This study investigated the use of asynchronous (mailing lists) and synchronous (chat sessions) Internet-based communication and their impact on teachers' attitude toward collaboration, activity completion rates, and test performance. The study also investigated the impact of collaboration on activity completion rates and teacher performance…

Writing samples from third grade classrooms in one site of the National Head Start/Public School Transition Demonstration Project were examined using a process scoring scheme providing holistic, text-level, and sentence-level writing scores. The children in the Demonstration third grade classrooms (both Transition study and non-study children)…

As the world increasingly becomes a global society, education is viewed as an important avenue for national development. New teacher preparation and inservice teacher professional development is key to educational improvement. This Digest examines teacher education goals, candidate selection, content of teacher education programs, and student…

The purpose of this paper is to examine Reading Recovery training in relation to three models for teaching and learning: instructor-centered, student-centered, and community-centered. Typically, the theories on which these models are based have been used to predict how children learn and how they should be taught. However, the theories and…

The four issues of this 1998 publication on gifted and talented students address the themes of: (1) acceleration and grouping, (2) professional development, (3) core content areas, and (4) giftedness: a Texas tradition. Major articles are: "Cooperative Learning, Curriculum Access, and the Challenge of Acceleration" (Ann Robinson);…

This paper points to the teacher professional development practices in a networked classroom that become reality with the use of advanced telecollaboration tools such as Virtual-U and KnowledgeForum. Those tools support, extend, and strengthen the establishment of teacher learning communities and their collaborative inquiries. Those inquires are…

This paper focuses on one method used to introduce model design and creation using StarLogo to a group of high school teachers. Teachers with model-building skills can easily customize modeling environments for their classes. More importantly, model building can enable teachers to approach their curricula from a more holistic perspective, as well…

This paper describes Project THREAD (Technology: Helping Restructure Educational Access and Delivery), an initiative funded by the U.S. Office of Education through its Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology grant program. The project's overarching goal is to build the capacity of individuals and institutional structures to support the…

This paper examines the perspective of professional developers as change agents of reform, presenting a self-study of one professional developer/change agent's experiences in an urban school system during the initial year of reform. It highlights obstacles and supports she encountered while working at two early education schools during the…

NMSA/AMLE's position paper "This We Believe" has come to be recognized as the best articulation of the middle school concept, the accepted standard. But inevitably, a position paper speaks in visionary generalizations; to move these ideals into actual practice is a very demanding task, but one that has to be undertaken if needed and…

This report presents key findings from the 2003 FRSS survey on Internet access in U.S. public schools and selected comparisons with data from previous FRSS Internet surveys. The 2003 survey, covered the following topics: (1) school connectivity, including school and classroom access to the Internet, types of connections, and computer hardware,…

The Guide to U.S. Department of Education Programs and Resources, commonly referred to as the Guide to ED Programs, provides an overview of all Department of Education programs authorized and funded under federal law. It also includes information on competitions administered under these programs as well as on the laboratories, centers, and other…

The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), through the Immigrant Students and Secondary School Reform project, seeks to strengthen the capacity of state education agencies and districts to improve delivery of educational services to English language learners (ELLs) enrolled in high schools undergoing reform. This compendium was developed…