Collaboration as a cornerstone of effective school inclusion is an idea that has high theoretical currency among many scholars in the areas of special education and educational leadership. The challenge for educational practitioners is to find ways to implement high-quality special education programs collaboratively amid the public call for school…

This article describes a collaborative professional development model in which faculty in a College of Education partnered with a local school district to design and implement a year-long project in an effort to increase effective integration of technology in instruction by K-8 classroom teachers, university teacher preparation faculty,…

This article discusses the potentially important implications of neuroscience or brain research, the newest "breakthrough" in education, for educators and the importance of sorting out claims on brain-based programs. It is obvious that brain research is not the elusive silver bullet that will answer all education problems. However, the new…

Teacher collaboration and support given from one teacher to another, focused on improving teaching and learning in the classroom, are notable by their absence in secondary schools in Bangladesh. This article identifies a number of constraints to developing a collaborative culture including the difficulty of the curriculum, the perceived low…

Organizational competence is what makes schools smarter, and such competence is typically found to reside in the relationships, norms, memories, habits, and collective skills of a network of people. Simply put, organizational competence is the sum of everything that everybody knows and uses that leads to increased learning. In an organizationally…

Teachers, administrators and policy makers at all levels of public education remain challenged to devise more effective ways to optimize teacher performance and, thereby, student achievement. Numerous professional organizations and teacher training agencies have long been advocates of high levels of teacher interaction and have formally adopted…

This article explores the potential of a partnership between general teachers and special educators in relation to developing exemplary literacy classrooms. The focus is on how these partners can collaborate effectively to create a classroom literacy program for all learners. Successful teaming practices are highlighted, including the development…

The purpose of this study was to understand and report how exemplary dyads describe their practice of collaborative consultation in inclusive classrooms. A dyad was made up of one resource teacher and one classroom teacher. This study discovered, through semi-structured interviews, how these educators collaborated and consulted as a team to meet…

Paraeducators have long been employed in the classroom, but their services have not yet been fully put to use in the gymnasium. With the ever-increasing number of physically and mentally challenged students enrolled in general education classes, paraeducators are becoming an essential part of any physical education class. This article explores the…

The call for curriculum integration "with" and "through" the arts is evident within many elementary school environments. Arts specialists are frequently asked to link their classroom curriculum to other content area instructional goals and standards. Furthermore, fully one third of national, state and local content standards in the arts (music,…

This paper examines the interactions between literacy teachers and instructional leaders and their effects on students' reading achievement gains. The results of this study have implications for how instructional leaders work with colleagues and how these relationships may impact student achievement. Forty-two suburban elementary and middle school…

In this article, studies on co-teaching for students with learning disabilities are briefly reviewed. Next, the factors affecting responsible co-teaching for students with learning disabilities are discussed, including how technology (i.e., computer-assisted collaborative strategic reading) might assist in promoting success while overcoming…

While an expansive body of literature exists on the performance and retention of first-year students, there is a paucity of research examining the persistence and attrition of faculty who teach these seminars and colloquia. The present survey of 18 full-time, first-year seminar faculty members at Northern Michigan University identifies marked…

Educational Leadership students need to spend significant time in authentic school contexts working alongside well-prepared mentor principals to be adequately prepared for complex leadership roles. Through carefully-designed internships, students link school leadership theory from academic coursework with actual improvisational practice. This type…

In this article we explore the concept of quality in teacher action research by re-examining our participation with science teachers in several different collaborative action research projects. We conducted second-order action research and generated a series reflexive conditions for promoting and ensuring quality action research. We assert that a…