Many mentoring policies do not differentiate between novice special education teachers and their general education counterparts. Although novice special education teachers may benefit in part from general induction practices, their experience is limited when there is little attention given to their unique instructional needs. Policymakers can…

The authors believe that by working together, teachers and school counselors can better support students and more effectively work for their success. In this article, we present our efforts in creating a collaborative class for preservice English teachers and school counselor interns. While offering an overview of English teachers and school…

It is always an enlightening experience to observe how ideas around change are executed. The Calgary Board of Education program for inducting new teachers into its system merited some investigation. For a period of six weeks, the authors participated in this process, with a view that, some elements of the program could be used in a similar format…

Mindfulness reduces distress, promotes optimal health, improves attentional control, mental agility, emotional intelligence, and situational awareness. Stress management and cognitive performance in Marines who spent more hours practicing Mindfulness Based Mind Fitness Training were superior to those soldiers who practiced fewer hours. Students…

In fall 2006, the deputy superintendent of Howard County Schools in Maryland asked a small leadership team to rethink leadership support for central office leaders and to come up with an aligned three-point plan that would meet their unique needs. The leadership support system needed to take into account: (1) Leadership standards and indicators of…

This article focuses on the following issue: How can we build a training and support system that would enhance the motivation and capacity of teachers for high-quality implementation of information technology innovations guided by humanist ideas? That is, a system that would not only increase teachers' motivation to apply Humanist Information…

Mentoring as a strategy to assist and retain beginning teachers in the profession has been perceived as the panacea for reducing attrition rates. Whilst this may be true in many cases, mentoring alone has been unable to stem the flow of resignations. In this essay on scholarship and teaching, the author explores surrounding mentoring programs. New…

Educators and policy makers have placed leadership development at the top of the school reform agenda, believing that aspiring and new school leaders can learn the necessary skills to improve the most challenging schools. Leadership development builds the capacity of educators (teachers and administrators) to be effective in leadership roles or…

Implementation of universal design for learning (UDL) in undergraduate special education programs offers a valuable foundation for training preservice teachers to educate K-12 students in rural schools. In this article, we provide an overview of UDL and the integration of multiple means of representation, engagement, and expression in assessment,…

"Teacher leadership" is often described as a murky concept that refers not to a particular position, but rather to varied formal and informal leadership roles that teachers play within school communities. Teacher leadership may involve shaping curricula, choosing instructional materials, leading professional book clubs, planning staff…

The Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program is a multidisciplinary program involving 43 doctoral degree-granting institutions and more than 250 partner institutions. PFF programs work to transform the way aspiring faculty members are prepared for their careers by focusing on the full range of faculty roles and responsibilities. A PFF program…

With the greying of the Australian population, it has been widely recognised that active career development for early career academics is essential to the future capacities of universities (Hugo, Daysh, Morris & Rudd, 2004). However, the same has not been acknowledged for general staff, despite general staff comprising more than 50% of staff…

Digital educational games (DEGs) possess the potential of providing an appealing and intrinsically motivating learning context. Usually this potential is either taken for granted or examined through questionnaires or interviews in the course of evaluation studies. However, an "adaptive" game would increase the probability of a DEG being…

This report provides the technical details on the modelling aspects of identifying significant drivers for the reasons for using certain types of training and for the choice of training types. The employed data is from the 2005 Survey of Employer Use and Views of the VET system (SEUV). The data has previously been analysed in NCVER (2006). This…

The paper picks up "matching problems" related to current European education policy moves by referring to the German, the French and the Austrian VET system respectively. As we here refer to "dual systems" or "school-based systems" respectively, the pre-conditions for transforming European policy into national…