This report describes the design and implementation of the three interventions tested in Project Upgrade, one of four experiments conducted as part of the Evaluation of Child Care Subsidy Strategies. The evaluation was a multi-site, multi-year effort to determine whether and how different child care subsidy policies and procedures and quality…

A significant number of studies in the literature stress the important role of teacher immediacy behaviors on learners' perceptions of social presence and satisfaction in open and distance learning environments. Yet, those studies were conducted in different open and distance education institutions than the current example of which unique…

In this article, David Schimmel and Matthew Militello document the legal knowledge and training of teachers based on a survey of more than thirteen hundred K-12 respondents in seventeen states. The findings from this study suggest that most educators (1) are uninformed or misinformed about student and teacher rights; (2) have taken no course in…

This study investigated family and classroom characteristics associated with parents' and teachers' ratings of 183 preschool children's social competence. Results of multilevel modeling indicated that teachers' negative ratings of the children were predicted by negative teacher behaviors and less optimal classroom climate. Children with higher…

In this article, the author describes what it takes to become a good teacher and what the system could do to develop good teachers. The author explains that good teachers chronicle their years by the number of flawed programs survived. The author notes that good teachers need to learn self-reliance. To achieve this, they need breathing room, and…

This study investigates how an instructor's use of relational messages, specifically nonverbal immediacy behaviors, may neutralize how students interpret instructor course workload demands and student expectations for instructor availability. It was hypothesized that instructor immediacy would temper instructor course workload demands that…

In previous eras, teacher training institutions included programs designed to enhance the moral qualities of prospective teachers. With the exception of programs offered in denominational teacher training colleges, such programs have largely ceased to exist. This article advances the argument against a backdrop of increasing incidents of abuse of…

When does academic freedom become counterproductive? How does an educational leader respond to a teacher, a prominent stakeholder in both the school and the community, who models classroom behavior that becomes potentially offensive and harmful to students? Are there issues and teaching modes that are "politically incorrect"? This case study…

Drawing on interviews and on the actual language that readers (students, teachers, and adults) use to interpret and respond to literary texts, this book examines the conventions that shape talk about literature in large groups, small groups, and adult book clubs. By looking across contexts, the four separate but related studies in the book raise…

This paper interrogates the "voice" in intercultural theory, research, and education. The argument presented in the paper is that existing theory and research fall primarily within recent historical Western conceptions of what constitutes science, and intercultural communication educators' teaching is frequently from a Western…

Until researchers achieve a breakthrough on comprehending what comprehending is all about, teachers need help on how to help students comprehend what they are reading. According to schema theory, students must be able to pronounce almost all key words and have schemata previously instantiated (know the meanings of almost all key words) in order to…

Traditionally, art has been viewed as a "frill." Many schools find themselves without an art specialist or with limited access to art teachers due to budget cuts. As a consequence, the responsibility of art instruction falls on the classroom teacher. A positive attitude toward art and toward its educational value is a first major step in securing…

Addressing the possibility of making positive change in education, this book explores the way that American pragmatism and the rhetoric of North American romanticism work together to create a method for restoring hope to composition and English teachers and responsiveness to the systems they work within. What the book calls…

This study investigated the relationship between physical education teachers' attitudes toward physical activity and fitness and what they taught in their classes. Participants were 42 elementary and secondary physical education teachers selected according to high physical activity and fitness attitude or low physical activity and fitness attitude…

A study measured students' emotional response to teacher behaviors based upon the theory of implicit communication. Subjects, 281 undergraduate student volunteers of preexisting, intact introductory communication courses at a southwestern university, completed questionnaires. As in previous research, teacher use of affinity-seeking behaviors…