Teachers are being called upon more than ever to play a large role in student learning. With every aspect of school reform depending in part to teachers who are well adjusted, prepared and informed in current teaching knowledge and skills, it is vital for teachers to have at hand the necessary tools. One issue, which can limit a teacher's…

Teaching is changing. It is no longer simply about passing on knowledge to the next generation. Teachers in the twenty-first century, in all educational sectors, have to cope with an ever-changing cultural and technological environment. Teaching is now a design science. Like other design professionals--architects, engineers, programmers--teachers…

This study examines a group of four teachers engaged in a professional development focused on understanding students' mathematical thinking. Using activity theory as a theoretical framework it sought to determine what pedagogical tools associated with a reform mathematics curriculum (i.e. Cognitively Guided Instruction) teachers appropriated…

Working collaboratively with the researchers, a small team of teachers developed and taught a lesson based on the Teaching for Abstraction model (White & Mitchelmore, 2010). This paper reports how one teacher learned about the model and implemented it in her lesson. It was found that she had assimilated several key features of the model, such…

"It must be nice to have summers off." Only other teachers know just how short summer is, with much of August devoted to planning for the new school year. This article offers 17 fresh ideas for exploring, making money, and preparing for next year. Plus, a reading list that hits all the marks!

Faculty members have collaborated on research studies, manuscripts, books, teaching pedagogies, and ideas for years. From exchanging marked-up paper copies to exchanging email attachments, as technology has progressed so have the techniques and methods of collaborating. However, often, faculty adhere to traditional methods of sharing work and thus…

An immediate critical task of the arts education field is to resolve the polarities of low-quality integrative and overly marginalized discipline-specific approaches to teaching in schools. In pursuing this challenge, the author defines three teaching approaches--arts as craftsmanship, arts as play, and arts as inquiry--and calls for re-weighted…

This article examines the potential of practitioner research to contribute to understandings of critical and transformative literacy theories. Drawing upon the work of intellectual historian Dominick LaCapra (2004), we investigate how practitioner research can reconcile theories proliferated from universities with those generated by practitioners,…

Collaboration is a widely utilized strategy for addressing complex social issues and for facilitating organizational innovation and performance. Evaluators are uniquely positioned to empirically examine the development and effects of interagency and interprofessional collaboration. In this article, the authors present the Collaboration Evaluation…

The Professional Learning Network (PLN) is gaining momentum in the education lexicon. It records and reflects the personal development of a community of learners--primarily online through a variety of platforms and social networks--in which educators share resources, provide support, introduce and debate ideas and celebrate learning. These…

A mentoring relationship that began as part of teacher preparation can evolve into a professional community that stays connected through several means of communication. While there are examples of mentoring relationships within schools and among former university cohorts, these authors took a slightly different approach. Rather than forming a…

In traditional preservice teacher education programs, education courses are "add-ons" to science content courses. As a result, future teachers are taught the importance of authentic inquiry and constructivism, but they may never learn science in the way they are expected to teach it. University of California San Diego's California Teach…

Today's college graduates are entering an interconnected world in which globalization will affect nearly every facet of their lives. In turn, college and university mission statements increasingly include the intent to educate "global citizens" among their fundamental commitments. Yet U.S. students' global knowledge and understanding…

Coordinating SoTL and assessment efforts strengthens the processes of inquiry, evidence, and innovation that lead to the continual improvement of student learning. Examples are provided for how to work collaboratively with colleagues to use these processes to continually inform the teaching practices within classrooms, academic programs, and…

Using survey data from novice teachers across 99 schools, we estimated multilevel regressions to identify the association between novices' intent to remain teaching within their schools and their perceptions of the collegial climate. The results suggest that novice teachers who perceive a more positive collegial climate marked by higher degrees…