This study investigates the beliefs and practices of seven high school chemistry teachers as a result of their participation in a year-long inquiry professional development (PD) project. An analysis of oral interviews, written reflections, and in-class observations were used to determine the extent to which the PD affected the teachers' beliefs…

Children with selective mutism (SM) present unique challenges for teachers. Typically, children with SM have such an immense anxiety associated with being seen or heard speaking they fail to speak inside the classroom and particularly with teachers. This article reports on the effectiveness of a small-scale exploratory study involving 22…

This self-study explores the role of collaboration in the development of three new faculty members as teacher educator-researchers. The research finds that protocol-structured dialogue about artifacts of classroom practice promotes understanding of the complex relationships among teachers, student, content, and context. We also report on the…

Classroom observation is a crucial aspect of any system of teacher evaluation. No matter how skilled a teacher is in other aspects of teaching--such as careful planning, working well with colleagues, and communicating with parents--if classroom practice is deficient, that individual cannot be considered a good teacher. Classroom observations can…

How can a school best use technology for teaching and learning? This inspiring book profiles eight visionary schools that are achievers in how they approach technology. In this companion to "Leading 21st Century Schools," Lynne Schrum and Barbara Levin offer insights direct from principals, teachers, superintendents, and others involved in…

With the passing of legislation like the No Child Left Behind Act (2002) and an increased focus on continuous improvement in public education, professional development has progressed from a passive form of learning for educators to a process in which educators are interacting, collaborating, and learning through various methods. This study…

Research suggests a compelling correlation between teacher behavior and effective learning environments. Focusing on the evidence-based teaching skill of offering behavior-specific praise (BSP), the researchers worked with three elementary-level general educators in a tiered model of training generally known as response to intervention (RtI).…

In today's policy and political climate, where teacher quality is widely assumed to be the single most important influence on students' learning, viewpoints about where, when, and how people learn to teach are mixed. However, most teachers and teacher educators continue to believe that teachers learn how to teach over time. This article looks…

Different interpretations of scientific inquiry exist between the two different communities of scientists and science teachers. Thus, in order to achieve a successful partnership between science teachers and scientists in establishing effective communities of practice, the framework for instructional practice in teacher professional development…

High profile documents in early childhood education describe Intentional Teaching (IT), yet little research has been undertaken to give specificity to the definition so that application is possible, for example, to determine and prioritize information to include in professional development, assess fidelity of the implementation of that…

We describe part of an action-research programme in Spain which was based on metacognitive reflection. The participants were four science teachers in a secondary school during the 2004-05 and 2005-06 academic years. During the study, they each analysed their own pupils' alternative ideas on photosynthesis and their teaching methods as recorded in…

This article presents an examination of the language demands of cognitively demanding tasks and proposes an initial framework for the language demands of higher-order mathematics thinking practices. We articulate four categories for this framework: "language of generalisation," "language of comparison," "language of proportional reasoning," and…

The aim of this research is to describe the development of the Science Teachers' Pedagogical Discontentment Scale, an instrument that measures the discontentment that arises in teachers as they recognize a mismatch between their own pedagogical beliefs and goals and their actual classroom practices. From a conceptual change perspective, we explore…

Background: As a component of the physical education curriculum, Health-Related Exercise (HRE) has been subject to intensive critique in terms of its status, organisation and expression in schools. Concerns and questions have also been raised about physical education teachers' professional knowledge of health and the extent to which HRE features…

This article reports findings from a research and professional development project at two high schools located in low-income, urban communities of color. The project collaborates with teachers on improving their instructional practices, using a framework of culturally relevant mathematics pedagogy, which is described in detail here. We present…