Presents, in their own words, teachers in the process of becoming researchers. Shows how research is not just neatly laid out end-products of new knowledge but is also the ticks of discomfort arising from new awareness. Notes that all of the teachers featured were going about their normal daily tasks when they experience major changes as…

Argues for research on teacher cognition in grammar teaching. Such research focuses on understanding how teachers approach formal instruction and why, and reveals much about the nature of grammar teaching as teachers perceive it. This information can be put to effective use in teacher education and development programs. (Author/VWL)

Introduces the topic of the journal issue--how college students learn--linking traditional educational research and contextual classroom research. The cognitive-mediation model of college student learning is briefly described in combination with some research that supports it. The article presents some implications for faculty development within…

Discusses the use of interactive television (ITV) in higher education and describes graduate courses taught with ITV at Washington State University. Highlights include problems encountered with ITV in traditional classrooms; criteria for evaluating the appropriateness of ITV classrooms; and guidelines for the development of effective ITV…

Investigation conducted to link Big-Five personality traits with behavior problems identified in childhood. Results show distinct patterns of behavior problems associated with various personality characteristics. Preliminary data indicate that identifying Big-Five personality trait patterns may be a useful dimension of assessment for understanding…

Puzzles over questions about writing and identity revealed in the author's kindergarten classroom. Focuses on the story of a child struggling to find her own way and her own place to examine the notion that writing, understood as a philosophical and artistic practice, might make a more explicit contribution to the process of…

Discusses the importance of research on young adult literature and its potential for making a difference in every classroom. Presents a report on the ALAN Foundation Award for Research in Young Adult Literature; and offers a report on a study regarding college-level young adult literature courses. (SR)

Suggests that juvenile offenders with poor literacy skills and a child to support need all the help they can get. Describes and examines a classroom at a juvenile residential facility. Finds that these juveniles must see themselves as readers, writers, and storytellers before they can carry literacy home to their own children. (RS)

Argues that skepticism is the force that keeps inquiry in motion. Describes how two fourth-grade classes' ongoing investigations of birds fostered a skeptical stance. Relates stories from these classrooms to illustrate three strategies that support learning to be skeptics: examining knowledge in context; challenging the assumptions of models; and…

Explores a range of ways that threat can exist and be transcended in a critical inquiry classroom by examining vignettes taken from one intensive inquiry project conducted in an urban high school English classroom. Concludes that educators need to acknowledge the ways stakeholders may feel threatened and to provide means for interrogating those…

Presents the personal opinions of four educators on the question of whether educational research is worthwhile. (YDS)

This study was conducted in a lighthouse school with a long and successful history of restructuring. In this article we describe our (surprising) impressions of shadowing Jake, one of the highest achieving students in the school. We present a researcher's account of Jake's classroom experience over the first four periods of a single day and an…

This article presents classroom-based research conducted in a first-year undergraduate English and Cultural Studies course at an historically 'white' and Afrikaans university in South Africa. I document my attempt to address issues of social inequality, especially racism and the apartheid past, in a South African literature course. Drawing on…

This article presents a polyphonic narrative of reflection in action across two institutional contexts; a university and a primary (elementary) school. It traces an honours student's research on reflection and her supervisor's reactions as reader. Both engage in construction and reconstruction of their basic beliefs about reflective practice as…

"Group is good, and group is good for curing all social ills" was the cynical observation of one of the lecturers in this study. Her comment reflects the uneasiness of lecturers at tertiary institutions with the notion that the educational advantages of group assessments far outweigh the disadvantages, and that such an approach promotes…