Providing quality education is the single most important issue in education today. Advocates of Invitational Education (IE) maintain that the effective implementation of its philosophy can lead to quality education in schools. This article describes a qualitative study of how inviting schools in the United States of America succeed in implementing…

The purpose of this dissertation is to describe the essence of the service-learning experience for K-12 teachers in central and northwest Ohio, specifically exploring teacher motivations for initiating service-learning in the classroom. Service-learning is defined as an educational methodology that incorporates student preparation, service to the…

"Focus on Policy" is NCSALL's (National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy's) newest publication. Its purpose is to synthesize research findings and highlight policy implications of these findings. "Focus on Policy" forgoes the usual academic conventions to provide its readers with an easy-to-understand summary…

This study investigated differences among professional staff members' commitment to continuous learning and improvement in high-performing schools differentiated by student academic performance and disaggregated by race and socioeconomic status. A total of 48 high-performing schools were identified by Kentucky Department of Education staff based…

"A Focus on Professional Development" is the fourth in the Research-Based Practices in Early Reading Series published by the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) at Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (PREL). Because reading proficiency is fundamental to student achievement across all subjects and grades, the preparation of the teachers…

This step-by-step guide reviews important issues and things to consider for beginning, substitute, returning, and emergency credential teachers. The 11 chapters focus on: (1) "Getting Ready to Interview: Personal Reflection, Picking the Right Path, and Interview Readiness"; (2) "Where It All Happens: Creating the Right Atmosphere"; (3) "So Much to…

This book conveys practical information on the instruction of students with mild disabilities, whether in self-contained, resource, or general education classroom settings. Emphasis is on research-based special education teaching methods. It first describes general principles of effective instruction, followed by more specific details associated…

Noting that no single issue in programs for toddlers inflames parents and frustrates staff the way biting does, this book provides guidance on program policy and practice. The book is based upon discussions of a task force on biting comprised of caregivers and administrators from the child care centers and Early Head Start in Syracuse, New York,…

This book discusses the inclusion of students with disabilities in general education classrooms and describes strategies that enhance the social success and educational achievement for all students. Section 1 provides an introduction to inclusion and contains the following chapters: "Rationale for Inclusive Schooling" (Anastasios Karagiannis and…

The New York Collaborative for Excellence in Teacher Preparation (NYCETP) is a multi-campus project designed to produce competent science and mathematics teachers. Ongoing formative evaluation included documenting NYCETP meetings and conferences, providing feedback summaries on conferences and working groups, and evaluating course conversion and…

For past two decades, there has been a growing national concern about teacher quality. This presentation discusses Connecticut's Beginning Educator Support and Training Program (BEST) and emulation of its assessment component by a medium sized department of education. The support component of BEST requires that all school districts provide…

The paper analyzes the dialogical interaction between a group of third graders and their teacher in one classroom episode. The semiotic and cognitive activity of the dialogical interaction is considered to be an "interpreting game". The episode exemplifies how in dialogical interaction the back-and-forth loops of interpretation, intention, and…

This paper summarizes what one research team learned when examining three issues related to inclusive education and general education reform in collaboration with schools in three rural districts in Oregon. The issues were: (1) how does special education becomes an integral part of public schooling; (2) how will higher education, research…

The University of California Irvine (UCI) and Beit Berl College (BBC) in Israel developed an action research project with cooperating teachers at their Professional Development Schools. This paper examines perceptions of UCI and BBC cooperating teachers within each culture and across cultures regarding: (1) contributions teachers provide to…

This report describes a program for improving performance of 54 sixth and seventh grade students with special needs included in a computer applications class. The targeted students exhibited deficiencies in basic computer classroom performance. Probable causes for poor performance were identified through a review of literature and an analysis of…