Inquiry Into Life Science is a content biology course expressly for the fulfillment of the General Education life science laboratory course requirement of elementary education majors at this university. The course is modeled on the Teaching Standards and Content Standards of the National Science Education Standards [National Research Council.…

This study explores the thinking and decisions of Vera (pseudonym), a Hispanic elementary teacher, while she enacted a reform-based science curriculum in an urban school in the southern United States. Vera's thinking, decisions, experiences, and practices were documented over a 2-year period. Using the data collected from semistructured…

Following the publication of an article summarising two systematic reviews on whether the teaching of grammar is effective in improving 5-16 year olds' writing (Andrews et al, 2006), the present article reflects on the relationship between knowledge about language and knowledge about grammar. It argues that there is no evidence for the assumption…

Cohorts are increasingly popular management tools for recruiting students into professional education programs, for organizing their learning experiences, for promoting performance-based outcomes, and for developing and using innovative teaching-learning practices. This article explores the role of a cohort leader in ensuring that the curriculum…

In this article, the authors explore the notion of difficulty and the vital role it can play in the learning journey of student teachers, both with respect to their own and their students' educational maturation. Confronting today's popular but flawed American reductionist learning models, the authors explicate the opportunity for deeper learning…

Many educators have suggested that teachers hold the authority, and thus the responsibility, for initiating the curricular and instructional changes made within their own classrooms. One implication of this suggestion is that teachers be reflective about their practice. Yet, reflection is a difficult process that requires critical thought,…

This article explores the nature of the author's classroom practice and provides insights about how he constructed and delivered classroom curriculum for the electrical apprenticeship classroom. In this article, the author defines classroom curriculum as the planned and guided learning experiences that take place in a classroom setting with…

This article considers the role of culture in establishing a program of educational reform in Lithuania, a former Soviet Bloc state. Specifically, through a comparative analysis of survey information from an international cross-section of individuals involved with educational reform programs in Lithuania at the local, regional, and national…

At Pima Community College's Downtown Campus, the ESL lead faculty, library intern and librarian collaborated to create a comprehensive, progressive information literacy curriculum, based upon principles and best practices in both Second Language Acquisition Theory and the Information Literacy Competency Standards for a suite of ESL courses. The…

With Christianity and the Jewish religion, Islam has been the leading divine religion, accepted and obeyed by millions over a large geography since its declaration in the early 7th century. In this article, the authors shed light on some milestones in Islamic civilization, such as the golden age, the Abbasids, the Ottomans, and the rise of Western…

East Carolina University has one of the few comprehensive substance abuse counselor education (SACE) programs in the nation that offers an undergraduate, master's, and doctoral level of preparation in substance abuse counseling. This article describes the evolution of this SACE from its beginning in 1972 to its current status. This comprehensive…

Nationwide, school district administrators are puzzling about how to increase the number of high quality principal candidates. Some districts have started programs to grow their own administrators. These districts, sometimes in conjunction with university programs, are providing training and mentoring for future school leaders. Some districts are…

Purpose: To distinguish sustainable development education from environmental education and stress the importance of problem-based interdisciplinary learning to sustainable development education. Design/methodology/approach: A range of published works relating to sustainable development education are critiqued, an introduction to complexity theory…

Objective: To describe the use of "draw, describe and write", a tool for exploring how adolescents perceive and explain their understanding of the world of drugs, as used in the development of the Blueprint project. Design: A cross-sectional study using a specifically designed research tool, including drawing and open-ended questions, used with…

Peer mentoring has been used for many years by the Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine to integrate new students into the academic and social culture of the institution. In 2001, an unusual situation arose. A problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum was introduced and the first cohort in this programme was mentored by senior traditional curriculum…