This paper presents the author's comment on "Evaluation Field Building in South Asia: Reflections, Anecdotes, and Questions" by Katherine Hay. Hay raises a number of extremely relevant issues relating to evaluation field building in South Asia. In this paper, the author aims to underscore the importance of three priorities for initiating…

The author enjoyed reading Katharine Hay's ambitious and humbling visions for evaluation field building in South Asia. She has successfully positioned herself on a high mountain with a wonderful set of binoculars that enable her to see the entire evaluation landscape of South Asia. She magically sees and describes significant historical forces and…

This longitudinal study examined how the approach leaders in two schools took to implementing the Common Core State Standards shaped the way that two first-year teachers constructed meaning related to being a teacher. Instructional leadership constructs and threat rigidity theory were used to analyze qualitative data gathered over a nine-month…

The value of research-informed classroom practices is well recognized and thus this qualitative study was designed to explore, from multiple perspectives, the experiences and influences of classroom practices for students with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD). The inductive analysis of 11 focus groups and three interviews involving 60…

The purpose of this case study was to explore the effects of a literature-based social-emotional learning curriculum on kindergarten students' social-emotional behaviors, awareness, and early reading skills in a large elementary school. The study examined beliefs/perceptions of kindergarten teachers in regards to what reading skills students…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to enrich the conceptual vocabulary of organisational learning by discussing the relevance of the interdisciplinary work of Gregory Bateson, an original and challenging twentieth century thinker. Design/methodology/approach: The paper debates a number of principles identified by Bateson, which reflect patterns…

This article sketches a personal story of life at a teaching institution when jobs in sociology were scarce. I examine the concept of elitism and situate it in conditions that shaped the discipline of sociology in the 1970s when a growing number of women entered the field. Throughout my story, I raise the following points: (1) Defining elitism…

This study examined whether teacher portfolios can be validly and reliably assessed by investigating the effect of an instructional tool on increasing the level of reflective thinking in elementary preservice teachers' portfolios. It also examined whether reflective thinking in preservice teachers' electronic portfolios represented sufficient…

While much attention is paid to students' experiences in online courses, there is sparse information regarding the experiences of faculty who teach online. Two university instructors address this gap in the literature and present an analysis of their experiences teaching graduate and undergraduate teacher-education classes at a university in the…

The primary aim of this study was to determine perceptions of three cohorts of third year undergraduate students (n = 65) on in-class reflective group discussion as a critical reflective approach for evolving professionals. Reflective group discussions were embedded into a final year course within the University of Queensland Bachelor of Oral…

Teacher education should incorporate management and leadership training with an emphasis on student audience analysis. Macro perspectives of teaching are needed for a workable approach to the management of education.

Many classroom teachers are still using the traditional teaching methods. The traditional teaching methods are one-way learning process, where teachers would introduce subject contents such as language arts, English, mathematics, science, and reading separately. However, the school improvement model takes into account that all students have…

"Literacy Achievement and Diversity" is the indispensable collection to the wisdom of respected literacy researcher Kathy Au. In this timely book, Au addresses the question of what educators can do to close the literacy achievement gap. She begins by outlining theory and research and then provides practical strategies to help teachers improve the…

This paper triangulates perspectives on reflective pedagogy (Yancey, 2009), integrative learning (Eynon, 2009) and technology integration into learning and teaching (Wenzlaff, 1998) in order to connect the dots among a set of values, challenges and opportunities that concomitantly emerge from using eportfolios (electronic portfolios) in teacher…

Over the past two decades, numerous textbooks have been published on teacher leadership; however, this is the only volume that provides a definitive overview of the scholarship and writing being done in the field of teacher leadership. This book introduces the reader to the scholarship of over 35 authors, and thus, becomes an essential tool needed…