How well are our schools preparing students to become global citizens who can communicate in languages other than English? To answer this question, we surveyed a nationally representative sample of more than 5,000 U.S. public and private elementary and secondary schools. Results identify current patterns and shifts over time in five key areas of…

This study focuses on elementary teachers' comprehension of flooding before and after inquiry-based professional development (PD). There was an improvement in teachers' understanding toward a normative view from pre- to post-test (n = 17, mean gain = 4.3, SD = 3.27). Several misunderstandings and a general lack of knowledge about flooding emerged…

Many teachers say that they do "assessment for learning" (AfL), but often their assessment practice does not really reflect the intentions and principles that make AfL powerful. Teachers who understand the "spirit" as well as the "letter" of AfL are continually building their expertise so that they can carefully apply…

This paper explores three influences on the effectiveness of teacher professional development for improving schools--the individual teacher, the learning activities in which teachers participate and the structures and supports provided by schools for teacher learning. It does so by relying on survey data collected for a national study of teacher…

This paper examines a group of secondary mathematics teachers who met 16 times to discuss video excerpts of their teaching. The explicit purpose of the meetings was to assist the teachers in preparing video for submission to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Analysis of meeting transcripts reveals that teachers engaged in…

Teachers know it is important to keep their professional knowledge and skills up to date, and presentation-style workshops are an efficient way to accomplish this. However, "one shot," "sit and get" workshops are becoming less effective in today's busy world. Much of the information gained is not likely to be remembered, and even less is likely to…

As a growing body of evidence links school success and early mathematical experiences, there is increasing interest in offering young children opportunities to bridge their informal understanding of mathematics with more formal concepts and processes. At the same time, many teachers and caregivers in the early care and education (ECE) field may…

As a part of the United States Department of Education Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants (TQE) program, a professional development project was conducted to support selected urban teachers from a Professional Development School to think reflectively about their teaching and learning. The 24 survey items were developed based on the three domains of…

The purpose of this study was to examine elementary teachers perspectives on the impact that Lesson study participation had on their knowledge and teaching of mathematics. The study explored teachers perspectives of how Lesson study participation affected their mathematical content knowledge and pedagogical-content knowledge. Lesson study is a…

The literature identifies methods that teachers can use to uncover student interests, and describes ways of responding that allow students to become involved in authentic science experiences. Missing from the literature are studies that examine teachers' thinking about student ideas, and the decision-making process they go through to weave student…

The purpose of this study was to assess teacher perceptions regarding the effectiveness of online courses as a delivery method for professional development. Participants were divided into two groups, educators who have participated in and now teach professional development courses online (instructors) and educators who have participated in the…

The teacher is considered the most important factor in student success. With increased emphasis on research-based information through federal legislation, teachers struggle selecting credible methods and procedures among available reading instruction sources confounding the possibility of student achievement. Teacher self-knowledge, peer teachers,…

When it comes to maximizing learning opportunities and outcomes for students from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds, race and ethnicity matter: They affect how students respond to instruction and curriculum, and they influence teachers' assumptions about how students learn. Effective implementation of race- and ethnicity-responsive…

The discovery of DNA is a classic example of the importance of working across content areas. Conceptually, interdisciplinarity can be fuzzy. Thankfully, scholars like Allen Repko and Julie Thompson Klein offer definitions one can build on. Klein (1990) sees interdisciplinarity as a bridge that links different disciplines while restructuring and…

Educational development, which the authors use to refer to the field of professional and strategic development associated with university and college learning and teaching, can be described in many ways by referring to its different aspects. In this article the authors endeavor to categorize many of the models that have been used to describe…