Rubrics have received increased attention in recent years in assessment and accountability efforts in higher education as tools that provide faculty with rigorous frameworks for translating authentic examples of student work into high-quality, useable data. These same tools may represent powerful vehicles for prompting and facilitating…

Many districts have formal induction and mentoring programs to assist teachers new to the district. However, if you are in a district that does not, seeking out an experienced, positive, and trustworthy colleague will help you to navigate the beginning of a rewarding career. It is essential to remember that asking for help is absolutely critical…

In this article we report the outcomes of a needs assessment administered to new faculty members who were hired within the last four years at Mount Royal University. Our purpose in conducting this needs assessment was to gather information to guide the redevelopment of the institution's support program for new faculty in light of a changing…

The beginning of the school year is filled with promise, hopes and dreams, and new initiatives. School psychologists will inevitably set goals, both for themselves and for their students. Goals may be personal or professional in nature and they require a certain amount of planning and time dedication in order to lead to success. This is an ideal…

Ever-growing expectations exist for educators to use assessments to collect, analyze, and interpret data, but how, if at all, are these processes affecting instruction? This descriptive case study of one team of second grade teachers offers an analysis of the links between teachers' use of data within their collaborative team meetings and…

Research shows graduates of teacher education programs do not always transfer, or apply, the best practices they learn to instructional practice due to factors related to course features, the student, and workplace environment (e.g., Brown & Bentley, 2004; de Jong et al., 2010). This study examined the challenges a secondary-level English…

Collaboration between student teacher trainers, the cooperating teacher, and the university supervisor, is directly connected with the sharing of respective knowledge (Gervais & Desrosiers, 2005). However, fruitful exchanges are not necessarily usual (Sanford & Hopper, 2000), which is considered the most detrimental factor in the student…

The practice of a dialogic pedagogy inspired by the writings of Bakhtin is increasingly popular in different parts of the world. This article is an account produced in the spirit of such pedagogy. Two professors (one from Brazil, the other from the United States), both members of an international dialogic pedagogy study group, write together to…

The collaborative design of technology-enhanced learning is seen as a practical and effective professional development strategy, especially because teachers learn from each other as they share and apply knowledge. But how teacher design team participants draw on and develop their knowledge has not yet been investigated. This qualitative…

The state of Florida has taken an unprecedented approach to teacher professional development in its Race to the Top (RTTT) Program application by proposing to promote an international innovation that originates in Japan, "lesson study," as a statewide teacher professional development model. Since winning the US$700 million RTTT funding…

The paper highlights the main aspects and characteristic features of teacher-teacher Wikis, which are considered to be the most effective teaching and learning tools. The research studies the effectiveness of using Wikis by teachers during collaborative lesson planning. It also traces the impact of teacher-teacher Wikis on the teachers'…

This exploratory study examined the frequency and content of text-based interactions between special education mentors (n = 22) and mentees (n = 50) within the Electronic Mentoring for Student Success Program (eMSS). Perceived outcomes of participants, based on an open ended survey question, were also analyzed. The Interstate Teacher Assessment…

In consideration of the potential of drawing and writing as assessment and learning tools, we explored how early primary students used these modes to communicate their science understandings. The context for this study was a curricular unit that incorporated multiple modes of representation in both the presentation of information and production of…

This longitudinal case study examines whether a school-based training scheme that brings together different categories of teacher educators (university supervisors and cooperating teachers) engenders true collective training activity and, if so, whether this collective work contributes to pre-service teacher education. The scheme grew out of a…

The major challenge with time is finding it. Current school-day schedules and school-year calendars are leaner than ever because of budget reductions. States and districts have implemented furlough days to balance lean-and-mean budgets that show no sign of improving. Few are willing to take the leap toward reducing instructional time to improve…