The initial vignette outlines some of the complexities of the use of Paired Reading (PR) in a real situation. A description of PR is followed by a brief summary of evaluation evidence. A number of related techniques are briefly described and the evidence for them considered. The utility of PR in relation to fluency is then discussed. The…

This article tells the story of a group of seventh grade teachers and administrators in one Los Angeles middle school who have grappled for years with the poor reading skills of their middle school students. Discouraged by the reading scores on standardized tests and frustrated with the limits of their readers, this group struggled to improve…

Meaningful and effective training and professional development programs for teachers are key to the improvement of teaching practices in our schools. In this paper, the authors offer a meta-synthesis of the literature on the role of reflection for mathematics and science teachers within the context of professional development. The authors frame…

Groups are frequently used in courses, but there is substantial evidence that insufficient attention is paid to creating conditions for successful teamwork. One key condition is high-quality, individual, and team-level feedback. An online peer assessment system and team improvement process was developed for this test case based on three design…

The author compares the efficacy of commercially available and internally developed standardized tests and evaluates their strengths and weakness in assessing student learning outcomes. The author shares the experience of a regional school in developing a standardized test to assess business knowledge. Data from a sample of 268 students were used…

This article begins by observing that foundations come in all shapes and sizes. The mission and grant-making philosophy of any foundation are determined by an unscientific mixture of its history, changing external realities, and leaders. The article then continues by describing The Teagle Foundation, a small, philanthropic organization with about…

This paper's focus is on an alliance of schools in England that came together as part of the National Teaching Schools initiative. Drawing on interviews from Head Teachers within the alliance, the paper explores issues of school collaboration from a premise that such collaboration is paramount to school improvement within the current climate of…

One of the main beliefs in quality assurance is that this activity--indirectly--will stimulate change in the work practices associated with teaching and learning in higher education. However, few studies have provided empirical evidence of the existence of such a link. Instead, quality assurance has created an unfortunate divide between formal…

The study "Improving Language And Reading Skills (LARS) in children with German as a first or second language" evaluates a newly developed differentiating programme for reading in terms of its effects on the reading and language ability of second graders with German as a first or second language. The participant group consisted of 105…

The dynamic forces shaping education in the 21st century have led countries across the world to pursue sweeping educational reforms. Despite significant investment and radical approaches including system and organisational restructuring, managerialism and marketisation, evidence of sustained impact in the classroom remains elusive. Using the…

This paper presents a learning and teaching strategy based on complexity science and explores its impacts on a higher education game design course. The strategy aimed at generating conditions fostering individual and collective learning in educational complex adaptive systems, and led the design of the course through an iterative and adaptive…

The present study tries to investigate the contribution of primary school teachers' peer- and self- assessment for effective implementation of active learning in their actual classrooms. In this study, areas in which self-reflection and peer assessment include three broad categories, such as methods of teaching and learning, instructional resource…

When Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans on August 29, 2005, the failure of the levees resulted in the largest single human-made disaster in the United States. In addition to the physical devastation of the city, the landscape of public schools in New Orleans was permanently altered, as was the national dialogue about school reform in the…

This is the story of a teacher leader who helped lead change in an urban elementary school by creating a new culture of support for beginning teachers. Specifically, she led focused, collaborative inquiry around discussion-based teaching to improve teaching effectiveness, and she created a school-wide coalition of support for beginning teachers to…

This article is an overview of how Flin Flon School Division in Flin Flon, Manitoba, used money received through grant funding to revamp its math programming in order to meet the needs of the students within the division. A combination of standardized test scores and individual teacher assessments revealed where student mathematical understanding…