How does the nation's largest urban public school district address the complex behavior management requirements of its special education students? This article reviews the positive behavior support system in the New York City schools. It delineates the major components of an urban special education public school district's positive behavior…

There has been increasing interest in the role of teacher and other staff behaviour in the development and maintenance of problem behaviours in individuals with special needs. Research and theoretical developments have tended to focus on one of three domains: staff as assessment and behavioural change agents, staff wellbeing as determined by…

Higher education scholars who participate in grant-funded activities at a junior high school recognize that huge gaps exist between their work world and that of junior high teachers and students--"at risk" and otherwise. One way of overcoming the gap is deeply embedding professional development in schools; such collaboration takes extra time,…

What do we know about education and diversity, and how do we know it? This two-part question guided the work of the Multicultural Education Consensus Panel, which included the eight scholars named above. The panel's work was sponsored by the Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Washington and the Common Destiny Alliance at the…

In this article, we draw from research on cognitive development, sociocultural learning, and organizational development to examine the key factors in teachers' professional learning. Our review of this literature suggests that looking at teachers' prior knowledge, the nature of their interactions, the representations they produce and use, and the…

Reflective peer coaching is a formative model for improving teaching and learning by examining intentions prior to teaching, then reflecting upon the experience. The goal of reflective peer coaching is to promote self-assessment and collaboration for better teaching and ultimately better learning. There are obvious benefits to colleagues…

The authors describe the ways in which, as preservice and inservice teacher educators, they conceptualize balanced literacy within an educational climate that values quick fixes, standardized curricula, and high-stakes testing. They proffer a professionalized version of the work of teachers in the classroom that values, fosters, and supports…

The U.S. Department of Education sponsored a summit that addressed the need for scientifically-based evidence on the use of technology in teaching and learning. One hundred leaders from the Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology (PT[3]) federal initiative were invited to participate in the meeting, held in Fall 2003. The recommendations…

Presents quantitative and qualitative data from a study involving a university, school districts and teacher candidates. Preservice-inservice dyads were taught how to use action research to examine, analyze, and reflect upon their teaching. Results indicated general acceptance by both new and experienced teachers, with developmental differences…

This article outlines the development and implementation of a project designed to help a school reflect on how well it has developed supportive behaviour management systems. The programme further encourages the school to implement more functional systems. When the local Group Special Education (GSE) office was offered an opportunity to develop…

Individual teacher excellence can only become collective tradition when the contexts in which teachers practice and learn are able to support, sustain, and expect culturally competent practice. Culturally responsive systems require the development of individual and collective discourse and practice focused on exploring how cultural perspectives,…

The purpose of this research was to enhance self-efficacy beliefs, chemistry content, and pedagogical content knowledge of middle grades teachers by incorporating specific design elements into professional development. This study analyzed the influence of program design on achieving gains in personal science teaching self-efficacy, outcome…

In this paper we present a study conducted within the framework of an in-service professional development program for junior and senior high school mathematics teachers. The focus of the study is the analysis of processes encountered by the staff members, as members of a community of practice, which contributed to their growth as teacher…

This article provides an opportunity to extend the discussion about teacher communities as part of complex school reform models, specifically centered on those communities whose membership is drawn on a semi-voluntary basis. Through a sixteen-month long ethnography, I document the activities of an urban teacher professional community (TPC) at a…

This article discusses part-time faculty members and the importance of educational technology for these part-time faculty members. Institutions invest large amounts of money in technologies meant to improve students' educational experience and the efficiency with which institutions serve students. The most common technology in which colleges…