The overall purpose of this dissertation was to examine how school climate, leadership, and teachers' belief systems are interrelated and how they jointly influence teachers' classroom practices and students' learning and development. This dissertation is structured as follows. In chapter 1, the overarching themes of the dissertation are…

This article investigates a teacher learning program in Mexico, Desarrollo de la Inteligencia a través del Arte: DIA (Development of Intelligence through Art: DIA), that supports teachers in applying holistic approaches to instruction that support social, emotional, academic, and cognitive growth. Using qualitative and quantitative measures, this…

One hundred repetitions--100 "useful" repetitions. This notion has guided the author's work in alternative education programs for almost 20 years, dealing with the most challenging students, from addicts to conduct-disordered adolescents to traumatized 5th graders. There are no magic tricks. The role of educators is to align with the healthy…

This randomized controlled field trial examined the efficacy of the Responsive Classroom (RC) approach on student achievement. Schools (n = 24) were randomized into intervention and control conditions; 2,904 children were studied from end of second to fifth grade. Students at schools assigned to the RC condition did not outperform students at…

Teachers can modify their instructional strategies with minimal training and effort, and this can result in increases in their students' self-efficacy. Self-efficacy judgments are based on four sources of information: an individual's own past performance, vicarious experiences of observing the performances of others, verbal persuasion that one…

Part of the new Knowledge Essentials series, "Fourth Grade Success" shows parents how to enrich their children's classroom learning and take an active role in their fourth graders' education by exploring: (1) What fourth graders are learning at school and the educational standards to expect in math, language arts, science, and social studies; (2)…