This handbook offers information on guiding student teachers at Millersville University, Pennsylvania. It begins with a quick reference sheet that includes actions to take in specific situations and important telephone numbers. Next, it features a model for teacher education that is a visual representation of Millersville University's teacher…

This practitioner brief focuses on the question: What happens when beginner-level English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students work in small groups? This question was pursued because the ESL teacher wanted to make use of small self-directed groups during class time. She found that the students needed a lot of structure from the teacher to make…

An award-winning program designed to increase the number of beginning teachers in urban schools, support experienced teachers functioning as mentors, and develop inservice and preservice teachers' interactive teaching practices has three components: developing a professional development school, a teacher observation system, and study groups…

Alternative assessment not only offers the opportunity to assess what students know, it also can more fully engage students in their own learning. When properly implemented, alternative assessment has the potential to: be a useful classroom tool, stimulate student participation; form a communication bridge with parents; and measure specific types…

This document comprises four papers from a symposium on using an inquiry-based observation tool for assessing teaching and learning on various educational levels. The first paper, "Introduction, and Overview and Use of the Tool for K-12 Science, Mathematics, and Technology Program Evaluation" (M. Jean Young), presents an overview of the tool…

Effective classroom simulations can provide opportunities for end-users to analyze human teaching and learning behaviors and can also help prepare teachers for real-world experiences. This paper proposes a simulation project based on an aggregation of ideas associated with knowledge-based simulations, behavior observations, visualization, and the…

Materials from a training session on assessing teaching effectiveness via a clinical supervision model are presented. The historical development of classroom observations and instruments is summarized, and the five-step method of clinical supervision (Goldhammer, 1969) is detailed. One step toward the improvement of classroom instruction through…

A study investigated the benefits to three practicing teachers of the experience of being observed by preservice teacher trainees. Information was drawn from teacher journal entries concerning this experience, observations by the student teachers, and conversation among teachers and between teachers and preservice observers. Specifically, the…

This document, part of a series of papers which describe the assessment of student learning in various aspects of the South Carolina curriculum from prekindergarten through grade 12, focuses on the assessment of student learning in the social studies classroom. It begins with an overview of current curriculum goals in social studies education and…

In 1978, a mentor committee was established at Sinclair Community College (SCC) in Ohio to develop and implement a system to provide part-time faculty with mentors and to assist with their development in becoming qualified and highly effective part-time instructors. In addition, the committee established general policies relating to the…

The purpose of this ethnographic study was to determine the norms and rules of behavior in a multi-ethnic seventh-grade classroom in an inner-city school. Data were gathered through classroom observations and interviews with the teacher. The teacher in this class stressed ethnic pride, and because the majority of the students (as well as the…

This volume presents methods and first-year findings from the urban and suburban/rural studies of Special Strategies for Educating Disadvantaged Children, a 3-year project that is collecting case study data on 10 different strategies identified as holding promise for educating this group of children. Data collected by Special Strategies involve…

Two combined second and third grade classrooms were observed throughout the five weeks of a summer school program to determine what "reading instruction" was in the contextual reality of classroom life. Observers viewed approximately 20 hours of reading instruction per week. In addition, they interviewed the classroom teachers informally as the…

The 11 publications reviewed in this annotated bibliography discuss such aspects of clinical supervision as inservice application techniques in the clinical supervision of teachers, clinical supervision rationale, the microsupervisory experience's humanistic and clinical format, what principals should look for in classroom observations to help…

Many teachers struggle with motivating students to learn. This is especially prevalent in social studies classrooms in which students perceive social studies as boring (Schug, Todd, & Berry, 1984; Shaughnessy & Haladyana, 1985). This article advocates the use of technology in social studies as a means to motivate students by engaging…