Preservice teachers are faced with many challenges when observing elementary classrooms and often jump to critical evaluation based on too little evidence. The authors wondered if preservice teachers could use observation methods from ethnography and sociolinguistics to delay their evaluations and interpretations of classroom practice and see from…

This article investigates the recruitment and selection strategies of one large Canadian school district in Ontario, called here the "Northwestern School District." Data collection included interviews, document analyses and observations, and were gathered in 2001. Findings indicated that designated structured teams, financial and…

This study investigated teachers' beliefs and practices of cooperative learning, and strove to determine whether their observed teaching practices reflected their stated beliefs. Findings of the study revealed that teachers understood cooperative learning to mean small groups of students working together to accomplish a particular assignment. The…

In the Fall Semester of 2003, an accredited course for graduate students, entitled "Homosexual Health Social Sciences," was launched at the School of Public Health of Fudan University, located in Shanghai, China. Using participant observation, in-depth interview and document review, this article details the experiences and strategies in…

The overall purpose of this article is to describe the history, growth and development of school libraries in Turkey from 1923 to 2004. For now and the foreseeable future, school librarians will be simultaneously working in the library of yesterday and deeply affected by the library of tomorrow. Changing information needs make it necessary to…

This paper examines the development of student functional thinking during a teaching experiment that was conducted in two classrooms with a total of 45 children whose average age was nine years and six months. The teaching comprised four lessons taught by a researcher, with a second researcher and classroom teacher acting as participant observers.…

There is relatively little information on the treatment effectiveness of child behavior-management programs with Spanish-speaking populations. Though there are several empirically supported treatments available in English, research on the applicability of these programs in Spanish is virtually nonexistent. This single-case study discusses the…

The effects of modifying the structural quality components of inclusive classrooms on material engagement among toddlers (18-36 months) with and without disabilities were evaluated. Initially, three classrooms were evaluated using items that addressed structural quality from the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale, the National Association for…

Teachers involved with professional-development opportunities inevitably differ in their content knowledge, access to resources, and instructional practices. The purpose of this study was to investigate how a standardized assessment observation tool, selected to gather summative information for grant-evaluation purposes about preschool teachers'…

Objective: This article describes the process and preliminary findings that a department of psychiatry developed to meet a new Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) educational standard known as ED-2. Method: At an educational retreat, 92% of faculty and 56% of residents who attended developed the types of patient symptoms all students…

Recent CALL research has started to go beyond the comparison of CALL versus non-CALL environments to explore what learners do while going through CALL activities. One important strand within that area has focused on the use and utility of providing learners with opportunities to request modified input. While many studies have carried out research…

This paper examines the reasons that physical education teachers exhibited caring behaviors during teaching. Four physical education teachers, identified as caring physical education teachers, were formally and informally interviewed and observed teaching. Data were analyzed using content analysis and inductive coding, and three themes emerged.…

The use of music in facilitating second language (as well as first language) learning is supported by evidence that points to the musical nature of even preverbal infants. Music and language have been found to develop similarly, and researchers have noted advantages to using song in learning. The author observed her Korean 21-month-old for …

The use of peers in the evaluation of teaching is part of a larger trend in postsecondary education toward a more systematic assessment of classroom performance. Many scholars believe that certain aspects of teaching can be assessed only by classroom observation. This study examines the use that peer reviewers make of teaching products, especially…

This paper reports on the findings of an investigation of the experiences of three and four year olds who had all-day provision, either in one preschool education and care setting or from a combination of providers. Here the data gathered about the children's experience and perspectives is reported. The evidence from the children suggests that if…