The action learning set (ALS) is an often-used tool in practice development to facilitate group reflection. As such, its use evolves in the hands of the participants as they become more comfortable with the process and as trust develops amongst group members. This paper aims to discuss the journey of one ALS over a 2-year period. It seeks to…

This article presents one strand of findings from a two-fold descriptive exploratory case study designed to: (1) investigate teacher educators' decisions regarding the use of technology in his or her teacher education courses; and (2) determine what the phrase "integrating technology into our teacher education program" means to teacher educators.…

This article describes the design and implementation of a school-based obesity prevention program, the successes associated with its implementation, and challenges with development and application of the program's curriculum base. The program is described, including purpose and goals, content and structure of the curriculum, type and training of…

The Western China University Graduates Volunteer Teaching Program (VTP) is a government-oriented social movement aimed at the advancement of social equity and the establishment of a harmonious society. University students, as the undertakers of volunteer teaching, serve as a vital part of this program. The participation of university students has…

There has been a substantial increase in the number of aging-related educational programs in the United States over the last two decades. Many of these programs utilize an experiential-learning approach, such as intergenerational service-learning, to train gerontology students to work effectively with older adults. This paper presents a model of…

This article draws on Bourdieu's field theory and related concepts of habitus and capitals, to explore policy implementation in relation to a particular case of teacher professional development in Queensland, Australia. This implementation process is described as an effect of the interplay between what is called the policy field and the field of…

For decades sociologists, criminologists, political scientists and socio-legal scholars alike have focused on the symbolic and instrumental dimensions of law in examinations of the effects of social reform and policy implementation. Following in this tradition, we focus on the relationship between hate crime policy and hate crime reporting to…

The Supplemental Educational Services (SES) provision of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 creates an opportunity for eligible students to receive free effective academic support services outside of the regular school day. The SES provision is relatively new and little information is currently known about the efficacy of such services. The…

In cooperation with its American developers, the Parent Management Training Oregon (PMTO) model was introduced into the Dutch youth care system at the beginning of 2006. In general, implementing new interventions in practice is no simple matter. Several factors related to the socio-political context, the organizational context, the intervention…

This paper describes three multigrade school reforms in Latin America: (1) Colombia's "Escuela Nueva", (2) Guatemala's "Nueva Escuela Unitaria", and (3) Chile's MECE-Rural. Each reform endowed primary teachers and students with special training and instructional materials, and encouraged new kinds of instruction in rural…

This article reports on the professional development of teacher educators within the context of a national project, "Professional Quality of Teacher Educators," where a professional standard and a standards-based procedure of (self-)assessment and professional development have been created and effectively implemented. This project…

This paper presents the root causes of the resistance of mainstream European educational institutions to implementation of minority language programmes (bilingual programmes with both an official/dominant language and an immigrant minority language as media of instruction). Differential treatment of different minority languages in the mainstream…

As more and more schools adopt school-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) as a model for school improvement and the success of initial demonstration sites becomes evident, districts are faced with expansion and sustainability issues. Careful planning of these implementation efforts requires district personnel to be familiar with the resources…

Learning Study provides a distinctive model for collaborative practice in teacher development. It combines the intensive "plan-teach-review" model developed by the Japanese "Lesson Study" model with a focus on the outcomes of learning using variation theory. We present an argument for expecting this approach to help trainees in initial teacher…

This paper reports the results of a ten-year effort to establish ethics as a learning objective for all business students, to assess the effectiveness in achieving that learning objective and to incorporate ethical conduct as a part of the school's organizational culture. First, it addresses the importance of ethics instruction for all business…