This case study of a central office school improvement initiative in an urban school system examines instructional leadership practices of two junior high school principals. The school-based research focuses on correlates of school effectiveness in "low achieving" settings and the principals' capacity to "reflect-in-action," an ability to make…

Preservice secondary teachers were assigned research on the consumer behavior and habits of junior high school students for the purpose of allowing preservice teachers to discover their own knowledge of young adolescents. Observations were made of groups of students at two typical malls in a southeastern city of around 100,000 population. The…

The power associated with identities is frequently negotiated within children's narratives and play scripts. When children engage in text production, they dispute and mediate their interpersonal and ideological relations. In this article, the author outlines an understanding of "whiteness" as a form of power or capital that is…

The report presents the activities, results, and papers of a 1979 New Jersey State Department of Education "Project UPDATE" conference exploring the role of institutions of higher education in special education teacher inservice education. "Professional Development--An Overview" (J. Anastasio) discusses some general issues related to faculty…

This paper calls for the involvement of social scientists in developing programs and directions for social change. Their research could illuminate the social reform aspects of the civil rights movement and the consequences of the movement on minority-group activists, nonparticipants, and the majority group. Studies could also be made of the effect…

This report focuses on the Study of Allied Health Education (SAHE) project that was established for the purpose of designing an action plan on a national scale for allied health and nursing education. The specific task of the project was the determination of the role that community and junior colleges might fulfill in increasing ambulatory care in…

This paper focuses on the use of outdoor-based experiential learning in an undergraduate physical education teacher preparation program to develop a culturally-sensitive pedagogy for work with children from different cultures. Applying the six-stage process for becoming a bi-cultural teacher (Klug & Whitfield, 2003), teacher preparation…

Part of a larger study on the experience of teaching in the steel mill learning environment was an inquiry focused on professional development. Teachers and coordinators were all members of the Teachers Action Research Group for Educational Technology (TARGET), a group of adult educators interested in improving learning and teaching in career…

This book examines issues and methods for conducting research into the educational resource environment in colleges and universities. That environment is defined as whatever is used to facilitate the learning process, including learning space, support staff, and teaching staff. Chapter 1 is an introduction to the series and lays out the process of…

This review of the literature discusses contemporary theories and models of action research that are being used by university faculty who are working with administrators and teachers to plan and conduct school-and classroom-based action research projects. The books that are reviewed provide educators with a variety of models for planning and…

This study describes a program designed to increase academic achievement in reading and writing among first and second grade students in a rural, middle-income area. Evidence for the existence of the problem includes reading comprehension tests, observation checklists for reading skills and reading behaviors, and writing samples. Analysis of…

The Illinois State Board of Education partnered with two outside groups, the National Computational Science Alliance (NCSA) and the North Central Regional Technology in Education Center (NCRTEC), to provide staff development, along with technological software, hardware, and support, to improve 6th graders' performance in the areas of mathematics,…

This action research project sought to increase motivation in second- and fourth-grade students in an urban Midwestern school. Achievement and skill measures as well as observations indicated a lack of student participation and interest. Three areas of intervention were implemented: cross-curricular activities to heighten student interest,…

This collection of papers presents a variety of field-tested examples that use problem-based learning (PBL) for teacher education in many professional development settings. It describes PBL activities for preservice, novice, and experienced educators at all levels. The eight chapters describe teacher educators' experiences using PBL in their…

This paper sets out career-related stories of people and their struggle to make sense of a life through work. They show that career management is not primarily a matching process but, for most, the making of a life the best way one can. The nine stories from five continents have these focuses: a feeling for a career; a career is other people or…