Following the passage of "No Child Left Behind" ("NCLB") in 2001 and the reauthorization of the "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act" ("IDEA") in 2004, states adopted new policies regarding the education of students with significant intellectual disabilities. In the state of Delaware, these policy…

The purpose of this study was to determine if professional development using school contextual data would provide deeper understanding and attention to the important issue of student bullying. This was primarily a quantitative study. Phase 1 involved using data from the pre-existing student and teacher needs assessments to create the school…

Three years ago, the Toronto District School Board, the largest in Canada and the fourth-largest in North America, began to explore demonstration classrooms as a way to create a richer model of job-embedded, differentiated, and personalized professional learning. By doing action research and examining a variety of professional learning models from…

This article serves as the introduction to this special issue of "Language Teaching Research" on content-based language teaching (CBLT). The article first provides an illustrative overview of the myriad contexts in which CBLT has been implemented and then homes in on the five studies comprising the special issue, each conducted in a…

Many schools are turning to response to intervention (RTI) models to meet the needs of their students. The promise of RTI is that it will enable schools to better and more efficiently meet the learning needs of a large continuum of students by providing evidence-based schoolwide instruction, supplemental supports, and intensive individualized…

This paper describes the potential of long-term co-operation between science educators and science teachers concerning the teachers' continuous professional development, based on Participatory Action Research in science education. The discussion is based on a six-year case study observing a group of about ten German chemistry teachers by chemistry…

This article presents a case study of a unique New Zealand professional development programme, Te Kotahitanga, for mainstream secondary school teachers. Findings discussed are drawn from an independent evaluation of the programme across 22 secondary schools. The professional development approach attempted to reposition the relationship between…

Toulmin's model of argument has been used by researchers as a theoretical perspective on argument and as a methodological tool for analysing episodes of oral argumentation in school science. An adaptation of Toulmin's Argument Pattern (TAP) has also informed a professional development programme for teachers. Research on the impact of the programme…

Instructional conversations are a teaching method in which teacher and students discuss academic topics with students' previous experience or knowledge (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988). In order to improve student learning, providing students more opportunities to engage in instructional conversations is often recommended. As research indicates…

The purpose of this mixed methods research study was to examine the effectiveness of a professional development approach in increasing the knowledge and use of instructional technology in the classrooms of elementary teachers. The participants were comprised of 14 elementary teachers in a rural public education school district in the southeastern…

How do you help students who "act out" or "shut down" due to academic frustration or whose social and emotional issues keep them from achieving success in school? Based on Project ACHIEVE, a nationally recognized model of school effectiveness and continuous improvement program, this book shows you how. Educators will find a pragmatic,…

The purpose of this study was to examine education leaders' knowledge of core and current issues in special education and how this knowledge is acquired. The study also examined the educational leaders' beliefs and practices regarding collaboration, response-to-intervention, and inclusion. Finally, the study examined the social justice issues that…

Out-of-school time (OST) is a growing field that includes afterschool, evening, weekend, summer, school-age care, childcare, positive youth development, and workforce development programs (NIOST, 2000). Research demonstrates that OST professional development is critical to program quality and student impact (Weiss, 2005/2006). In an effort to…

Because of the historically low numbers of minorities in geoscience careers and college majors, an area of growing attention is how teacher professional development may be utilized to increase diversity in the geosciences (Pecore et al., 2007; Sedlock & Metzger, 2007). This paper examines teacher preferences for the timing, location and…

Storytelling may be a powerful instructional approach for engaging learners and facilitating e-learning. However, relatively little is known about how to apply story within the context of systematic instructional design processes and claims for the effectiveness of storytelling in training and education have been primarily anecdotal and…