Over the last two decades, the notion of teacher leadership has emerged as a key concept in both the teaching and leadership literature. While researchers have not reached consensus regarding a definition, there has been some agreement that teacher leadership can operate at both a formal and informal level in schools and that it includes…

The Motivation of Teachers to Assume the Role of Cooperating Teacher This study explored a phenomenological understanding of the motivation and influences that cause experienced teachers to assume pedagogical training of student teachers through the role of cooperating teacher. The research question guiding the study was what motivates teachers to…

This case study explored sociocultural forces that influenced three 10th grade public high school biology teachers' instructional goals, instructional acts, and identity narratives related to the teaching of evolution. Primary data included field observations of classroom instruction and teacher interviews. Secondary data included informal…

Teachers' work in tuition-free (non-classroom) time was investigated to see to what degree teachers do work that could be considered as qualifying for the status of professional autonomy. The question arises in Sweden and elsewhere as both teachers and the state actively, and in tandem, strive to professionalise the work of the teacher. Abbott's…

Van Allen (1996) supports a paradigm shift in how Americans think about education, from a view of school as hierarchy to school as continuum. While the relationship between elementary and secondary education is not always visible, teachers can model cooperative learning for students by working as a team across grade levels to solve problem,…

An assignment taken from Robert Marzano's "Tactics for Thinking" sparked a protest movement in two southern Indiana school systems in Spring 1988. Seven Gibson County women viewed the focusing assignment as mind-control and tied Marzano's book to the "brainwashing" New Age movement promulgated by Marilyn Ferguson's book…

Self-determination theory posits that individuals who have basic psychological needs satisfied while engaging in an activity will be more likely to value and persist in that activity. Scholars in this area have also posited that autonomy-supportive social contexts are top-down determinants of individual need satisfaction. To understand better the…

The purpose of this research was to study the development, implementation, assessment, and revision of an integrated social justice curriculum with the goal of providing an understanding of the elements which supported and hindered social justice education from the perspective of an elementary school teacher. The research procedures used in this…

Hierarchical educational structures employ a standards-driven decision-making atmosphere that challenges teachers' autonomy. This situation represents a critical issue for teacher educators who must consider how they will teach candidates to respond to these settings. We argue that teacher empowerment represents a moral issue that teacher…

Reared in a hierarchical environment, teachers in Germany have had difficulty working with team structures despite the benefit of increased professional autonomy. The Holweide Gesamitschule in Cologne, a large comprehensive high school begun in 1975, developed a plan to diminish big-school anonymity and emphasize cooperation among children of…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to find out what kind of contextual factors that positively or negatively influence effective school improvement (ESI) in The Netherlands. Design/methodology/approach: To achieve the above-mentioned purpose, Sun's contextual level model with ten contextual factors and 48 indicators has been used to carefully…

This paper briefly introduces the reader to the notions of learner training and learner autonomy. It makes practical suggestions as to how training might be woven into the typical short summer language program, in the hope that it might improve the students' effectiveness during and after the course. It is argued that this can be done in three…

The Effective Teacher Training Program in North Carolina is based upon correlational studies primarily limited to the areas of reading, math and language knowledge and to learning outcomes that consist of basic skills, factual knowledge, and concept name identification. Despite warnings against overgeneralization within the studies themselves, the…

Several indirect methods of encouraging change in teaching behaviors are offered to assist supervisors in guiding teachers toward professional autonomy. (DF)

Critiques demeaning attitudes toward adult literacy learners implicit in the practices of major literacy programs and examines underlying assumptions about the nature of literacy in light of recent studies. Argues that literacy professionals must confront political and institutional barriers to effective literacy education and offers an…