This paper describes the process of "scaffolding" as a teaching strategy in early childhood education, and demonstrates how scaffolding can promote children's learning about the natural environment. Examples of scaffolding are provided from seventy-four running record observations made over a two-year period in a nature-based preschool…

This paper aims to present the results of an investigation regarding the professional development of teachers who worked in the early years of basic education. The qualitative research involved teachers who participated in the "Observatório da Educação" project (MEC/CAPES). Because of the data amount, we choose to present the data…

There is increasing policy interest in the use of standards-based multiple measure teacher evaluation systems that include both observational and value-added measures of teacher effectiveness. The growing literature that assesses the relationships between these measures does so mainly in academic settings using a validity lens. While valuable in…

A rich tradition in developmental psychology explores physical reasoning in infancy. However, no research to date has investigated whether infants can reason about physical objects that behave probabilistically, rather than deterministically. Physical events are often quite variable, in that similar-looking objects can be placed in similar…

By conducting usability testing on a multilanguage Web site, this study analyzed the cultural differences between Taiwanese and American users in the performance of assigned tasks. To provide feasible insight into cross-cultural Web site design, Microsoft Office Online (MOO) that supports both traditional Chinese and English and contains an almost…

Pre-service candidates' perceptions of how to teach were challenged after going through the process of Classroom Rounds, the process that was used in this study. Classroom Rounds consisted of a pre-conference meeting with an inservice teacher, followed by a classroom observation of that teacher, and finally a discussion focusing on proven…

If your professional learning seems stalled, maybe you could put yourself and your colleagues in the driver's seat of professional development. The authors describe a professional learning approach that gives teachers both a say in what they focus their learning on and a chance to practice and refine teaching strategies that they hope to…

Rebecca Van Tassell struggled during her first years as a science teacher. She knew her colleagues had good ideas to share, but she never got to see them in action, so she started a walk-through club in which she and a few colleagues visited one another's classrooms and discussed what they saw. The group met every two weeks, after having…

The guitar has a high value in cultural capital and we are immersed in a culture in which the guitar is the predominant vehicle of music-making. Given the guitar's mass popularity, it follows that the guitar-learning community is vast and diverse. Subscribing to the social model of disability, I problematise the guitar as being disabled and…

Children with developmental disabilities are trained using different teaching arrangements. One of these arrangements is called small-group teaching. It has been ascertained that a small-group teaching arrangement is more effective than a one-to-one teaching arrangement. In that sense, teaching academic skills to pre-school children in small-group…

In this study, a dual-level capabilities approach to development is introduced. This approach intends to improve upon individual-focused capabilities approaches developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. Based upon seven months of ethnographic research in the Afro-descendant, autochthonous Garifuna community of Honduras, constructivist grounded…

In the last decade, the interest in the study of organizational culture and effectiveness has increased; however, few studies have been done in the educational field. The objective of this research is to deepen the knowledge of the relationship between organizational culture and effectiveness in institutions of higher education, and to try to…

Parental modeling of behavior has long been considered a major socialization process for children. In this piece, the author explores how parenting behavior is passed from one generation to the next, focusing on parenting styles among Jewish and Muslim mothers in Israel. The results indicate that young mothers tend to reproduce their parents'…

This study used generalizability theory to measure reliability on the Recognizing Effective Special Education Teachers (RESET) observation tool designed to evaluate special education teacher effectiveness. At the time of this study, the RESET tool included three evidence-based instructional practices (direct, explicit instruction; whole-group…

This ethnographic study took place in a graduate course at a large research university in the Midwestern United States. It presents an in-depth examination of the experiences and challenges of a group of four students learning to be Instructional Design and Technology professionals who are concerned with the well-being of all members of a society,…