Inspired by common read projects, wherein first-year students read a shared text as a means of acclimating to the university community, our writing program adopted a project introducing students to bell hooks' 'Teaching With Love' through an empathy-based pedagogy. The researchers, with faculty participants, used a heuristic method of indwelling…

Long-standing criteria for Common Reads (CR) programs recognize the value of diversity in the book selection process. This study, examining 1,801 books chosen over a four-year period (2017-20), explored the extent to which these programs have embodied this spirit. In particular, this work focused on the diversity of the books (through genre and…

Response to intervention (RTI) is a valuable framework for providing effective and equitable educational opportunities to all students; however, recent research indicates that RTI programs are not achieving their potential for promoting student learning. As schools develop, implement, and sustain RTI systems, they would benefit from the addition…

Heavy use of digital media is known to reduce psychological well-being. A recent campus Common Read program, which included reading "Irresistible" (Alter, 2017) and attending a series of events, attempted to promote more conscientious relationships with technology, thus supporting psychological well-being. Changes in mobile phone…

The purpose of this Action Research study was to investigate the curricula used by Readers' Workshop teachers at an independent day school and the successes and barriers of having an external reading consultant provided by the program. The study compared the relationship between an external reading consultant with the desire of an in-house…

One of the issues connected to the use of standards in independent schools is the varying approaches to an astonishing variety of school missions. Independent school administrators and teachers often see national standards to be the purview of the professionals they hire. As a result, teachers and department heads work to select standards that…

Teacher professional learning is of increasing interest as one way to support the increasingly complex skills students need to succeed in the 21st century. However, many teacher professional development initiatives appear ineffective in supporting changes in teacher practices and student learning. To identify the features of effective professional…

Teacher professional learning is of increasing interest as one way to support the increasingly complex skills students need to learn in preparation for further education and work in the 21st century. Sophisticated forms of teaching are needed to develop student competencies such as deep mastery of challenging content, critical thinking, complex…

New Zealand schools increasingly use inquiry to understand and address complex and persistent issues. This requires schools to have committed Lead Teachers with deep knowledge about inquiry. The collection of studies in this book have been compiled by the research team at the Woolf Fisher Research Centre, University of Auckland, to illustrate the…