In 2002, the Tennessee Department of Education asked the Appalachia Educational Laboratory (AEL) at Edvantia, Inc. to develop content for online professional development that would help meet the goals of the state's Reading First Program. In response, laboratory staff developed and subsequently delivered Assessment and Intervention in a…

This inservice professional development module, part of the Alabama Reading Initiative, presents research summaries, notes for presenters, and activities. The Oral Language and Vocabulary module elaborates on a student's comprehension of text as it relates to the overlap between the student's system of language and the author's system of language.…

High stakes testing presents a significant problem for the design of effective professional development. The absurdity of asking teachers and administrators to raise test scores constantly encourages teachers to teach to the test without regard for the intellectual development of students. This case study from Texas describes the reflective…

As school-to-work systems evolve across the nation, teachers will assume a variety of new roles and responsibilities. The collaborative nature of school-to-work requires greater interaction between teachers and other partners in schools and the community. Innovative approaches to learning in school-to-work systems, such as project-based…

This paper reports the findings of a comparative study of the content of electronic exchanges among members of learning communities to determine what kinds of online dialogue differences, if any, exist. The virtual learning communities compared are two cohorts within the same professional preparation program for teachers aspiring to become school…

Schools and school districts across the United States are establishing and expanding foreign language programs. Although most programs are found at the secondary school level, an increasing number are being established in elementary schools. A survey by the Center for Applied Linguistics indicates that 31% of U.S. elementary schools are offering…

Education is already a big business. E-learning, by making it easy to import information and skills to anyone, anywhere, anytime, and for any purpose will grow the education market. The big winners will be those vendors that identify and serve emerging and sometimes hidden markets. The biggest growth segments unleashed by e-learning are education…

This study describes a teacher preparation program in mathematics and science and explores what impact the reformed curricula and teaching methods instituted in the program have on prospective teachers' understanding of rational numbers and integers. The study pursues obtaining in-depth insights regarding prospective teachers' concept development.…

This report documents findings from a qualitative investigation conducted by the Center for Children and Technology (CCT), a multi-year study of the impact of the JASON project on students and teachers. Focus group interviews were used to ascertain how teachers use the JASON curriculum with different groups of students and to explore teachers' use…

The purpose of this study was to describe the evolution of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in prospective secondary physics teachers. Craft knowledge was used as one epistemological perspective. The researcher used two cases, two prospective physics teachers, and followed their development through the science curriculum class and student…

The new emphasis on communication of ideas and problem solving in mathematics teaching places an additional burden on limited English proficient (LEP) students with relatively poor language skills and their teachers. This research addresses the question of how students' language proficiency affects teachers' assessment of students' mathematical…

Suggests an eight-step approach to student teacher observations to increase students' professional growth including simulation, peer-reaction, video review, practice teaching, audio review, real teaching, tape review, and post-observation conference. (RC)

The reform of the nature and content of secondary school teacher preparation programs is advocated in an examination of four key assumptions: (1) Secondary school teachers must be content specialists; (2) Secondary school teachers must teach by lecturing; (3) All students are the same; and (4) Secondary school teachers are best socialized to…

In a year-long, school-based teacher education project, primary school teachers were given workshop- and classroom-based support, including sustained mentoring, as they appropriated a generative heuristic for teaching technology and science. Dialogs show how a mentor supported one teacher as she aligned her former instructionist teaching methods…

Describes on-the-job training models developed by the Pilot Mini District of the Cincinnati Public Schools for integrating computer technology into classroom instruction: (1) Shadowing; (2) One-on-One for One; (3) Rotating Topics; (4) Walk-in Clinics; and (5) Student Exchanges. (AEF)