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'…

Debate over the link between student learning styles and effective teaching has a long tradition, made more interesting by Karns's recent article "Learning Style Differences in the Perceived Effectiveness of Learning Activities." Fundamentally he asserts, in critiquing Morrison et al. (2003), that marketing educators should not adopt "a high…

Approximately 40% of college students are visual learners, preferring to be taught through pictures, diagrams, flow charts, timelines, films, and demonstrations. Yet marketing instruction remains heavily reliant on presenting content primarily through verbal cues such as written or spoken words. Without visual instruction, some students may be…

This paper examines the social construction of white, female, spinster teacher personality profiles in the first half of the 20th century. Focusing on the psychological, medical, and psychoanalytic literature, I provide an overview of how white unmarried female teacher personalities were understood in order to provide a historical context for…

In this reflective essay, the author describes her continuing search for a pedagogical path. She explains how she came to reject authoritative answers and packaged educational ideologies, and describes the questions that have unfolded for her about her own teaching. In closing, she writes about her search for a faith--a set of principles to guide…

This paper focuses on high school mathematics teachers and what they do when they use digital technology in their lessons. It is essentially a discursive paper but it uses data from a project on teachers using technology to illustrate points. The main aim of the paper is to present an holistic account of factors influencing teachers' practice. A…

Sponsoring a student teacher is a tremendous responsibility for a mentor. It is a vitally important time in the life of the prospective teacher, so the teacher needs to carefully consider all aspects of being a mentor. Preparing for a student teacher to come into the classroom is somewhat like preparing for a new family member: everyone must…

Tim O'Keefe, Rise Reinier and Kevin Gallagher, Bruce Morgan, Julia Lopez-Robertson, Donna Santman, JoAnn Wong-Kam, Sharon Hill, and Linda Christensen provide short essays describing their personal visions of possibility about literacy and how they maintain that passion and vision. Across a range of contexts, they reflect on the ways in which their…

Constructivist teaching techniques work well in various instructional settings, but many teachers remain skeptical because there is a lack of quantitative data supporting this model. This study compared an undergraduate nonmajors biology lab section taught in a traditional teacher-centered style to a similar section taught as a constructivist…

To take math anxiety out of math instruction, teachers need to first know how to easily diagnose it in their students and second, how to analyze causes. Results of a recent study revealed that while students believed that their math anxiety was largely related to a lack of mathematical understanding, they often blamed their teachers for causing…

This study explored a theory for motivation which included aspects of both attribution theory and goal theory. Motivational variables included beliefs about intelligence (entity or incremental), goal orientation (mastery/learning, performance-approach, performance-avoidance) and avoidant behaviours. Grades 4 and 5 students from a large,…

Motivation can be defined as exciting the mind of the student to receive the instruction. Excitement, interest, and enthusiasm toward learning are the primary objectives in motivation. College professors need strategies to reduce student boredom and enhance student motivation. Students will learn what they want to learn and will have difficulty…

This publication is part of a series of monographs on the art of teaching. Each volume, focusing on a specific discipline, explores theory in the context of teaching strategies connected to evaluation of both teachers' and students' learning. Three techniques are offered to help teachers use the series: dialogues (as self-evaluation and in study…

Classroom management is defined as the organization of the classroom as a learning environment; the management of student discipline, order, and care; the grouping of students for different tasks and patterns of interaction; and the individualization of student learning. This paper reports on two Swedish case studies of contrasting classroom…

A qualitative ethnographic study examined three early childhood teachers' awareness, acceptance, and implementation of emergent literacy theory. The three teachers, from three different schools in two neighboring mid-Atlantic states, were chosen for their contrasting teaching styles. Each classroom was observed by a non-participant observer for…