The continuous poor performance of South Africa's learners is detrimental to its developing economy. The need for education change prompted two universities to initiate a system-wide change strategy in a poorly performing school district. The leverage for change was leadership development, involving school principals and district officials. The…

Research Findings: This study investigated the relationship between features of the classroom environment and misalignment between teacher and observer ratings of preschoolers' classroom engagement and the extent to which years of teaching experience moderated this relationship. In a sample of 116 preschoolers and 21 teachers in 29 classrooms,…

One crucial question for researchers who study teachers' classroom practice is how to maximize information about what is happening in classrooms while minimizing costs. This report extends prior studies of the reliability of the Instructional Quality Assessment (IQA), a widely used classroom observation toolkit, and offers insight into the often…

In "Drosophila," prior fighting experience influences the outcome of later contests: losing a fight increases the probability of losing second contests, thereby revealing "loser" effects that involve learning and memory. In these experiments, to generate and quantify the behavioral changes observed as consequences of losing…

Maxwell's needle apparatus is used to determine the shear modulus (?) of the material of a wire of uniform cylindrical cross section. Conventionally, a single observation is taken for each observable, and the value of ? is calculated in a single shot. A modification to the above apparatus is made by varying one of the observables, namely the mass…

Explicit instruction is a systematic instructional approach that facilitates frequent and meaningful instructional interactions between teachers and students around critical academic content. This study examined the relationship between student mathematics outcomes and the rate and quality of explicit instructional interactions that occur during…

This paper summarises the findings of a research project on interprofessional collaboration in the emergency unit of a major Finnish hospital. The findings are discussed through a broad conceptual framework which involves work process knowledge and interprofessional collaboration. The project, carried out from 2010-2012, investigated different…

Observing the work of science teachers is different. Although general indicators such as a focus on relevant and appropriate topics, student engagement, frequent checks for understanding are important for any context, they're insufficient for identifying good science instruction. Science teachers need to use science-specific instructional…

Explicit instruction is a systematic instructional approach that facilitates frequent and meaningful instructional interactions between teachers and students around critical academic content. This study examined the relationship between student mathematics outcomes and the rate and quality of explicit instructional interactions that take place…

The popularity of rock climbing continues to increase. However, little research is available on the pedagogy of rock climbing. This study explored the effect of learning activities in a school-based rock climbing program on students' climbing self-efficacy. It used a case study design and data collection methods included (a) observations of the…

De-privatisation of classrooms signifies the opening of classrooms so teachers can 'observe', 'be observed' or 'engage in team teaching'. This study examined the perceptions and practices of school staff to determine the possibilities and challenges of deprivatisation of classrooms in Fiji. Employing case study methodology, data were gathered from…

Lively and effective classroom instruction is an important feature of quality schools. Recently, the lead author's school has launched a reform of classroom teaching methods to implement a dialogic model. The dialogic model, taking cues from constructivist learning theories and Manabu Sato, expects educators to promote multiple kinds of classroom…

Evaluating comments from pre-service STEM teachers before and after their first teaching experience, this study examines changes in pre-service STEM teachers' viewpoints regarding the most challenging aspect of teaching and the most important traits of a teacher. Pre-service STEM teachers were asked the same survey questions on the first and last…

This dissertation explores the role of social media use in the social development of "at-risk" youth in Los Angeles, CA and Lafayette, IN, with a major goal of identifying beneficial ways to address the social support needs of youth and adolescents to aid in their successful assimilation into adulthood. This study employs ethnographic…

This study evaluates the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) model and its application in the Saudi classroom from the English language teachers' perspective. The study used a descriptive study design, with a selected sample of 300 male and female English language teachers from elementary and middle schools. The research conducted a…