In this article, the author shares with the reader some of the insights he has gained through his experience of using photographs as a research tool during a year-long investigation of cultural events at three universities and schools in the Midwest of the United States. The article is divided into two alternating sections: the ones in plain text…

A consortium of teacher education professors worked together in a 3 year project to infuse service-learning into their courses. Although they had participated in the same preparatory workshops, they largely integrated it in ways that appeared to eclipse S-L orthodoxy. To understand their variances we examined the choices and contexts that shaped…

This article presents research based on highly structured and self-managed discussions in the university context. The main question answered by this study is about the value and effectiveness of these virtual tools for teaching and learning, in terms of the types of knowledge built and the relationship between this knowledge and the academic…

AI proponents possessed a seemingly odd predilection to tell stories about times in which no stories are or will be told. Their stories cover a range of time that exceeds that of human experience, beginning with a kind of creation myth about competing songs that are parasitic on the behavior of apes to trajectories of progress in which Man is…

This article describes an intervention used by the author in her clinical practice. Some clients have a need to resolve relationship issues. "A Musical Chronology" has been a helpful resource for this work. Through the chronology, clients examine their life/love stories, share these stories with their therapist, and work through grief or other…

As a Certified Laban Movement Analyst and a classically trained ballet dancer, I consistently weave the Laban Movement Analysis/Bartenieff Fundamentals (LMA/BF) theories and philosophies into the ballet class. This integration assists in: (1) Identifying the qualitative movement elements both in the art of ballet and in the students' dancing…

The paper addresses contemporary relations between emotions, gender and feminist action research. Starting from analysis of the increasing emotionalisation of everyday life, it explores the quasi-feminist--or what the author calls "feminised"--forms of incitement to reflexive confession that are increasingly gaining favour within professional and…

The director of a small career academy of the arts in a public high school reflects on the conflicting demands to establish a college-preparatory program adhering to state standards and to facilitate the personal growth, artistic discovery, and democratic empowerment of teens. By narrating experiences that go to the heart of philosophical discord,…

This action research study investigated first-graders' attitudes toward being a community of learners as a result of their involvement in constructing their classroom environment. The children's attitudes throughout the year were measured through student surveys, parent surveys, student reflections, teacher reflective journal entries, and informal…

This study was designed to elicit concepts and practices of democracy and accountability from education practitioners--graduate students who are teachers and leaders in schools and who are differently positioned as workers in higher education systems. The author's intention was to prompt active and reflective thinking on the part of the students…

The year 2006 saw the implementation of a new curriculum for teaching English First Additional Language (FAL) in grades 10-12 in South African high schools. The curriculum includes the teaching and assessment of visual literacy--a challenge for teachers whose apartheid-era teacher education did not address visual literacy at all. The article is a…

Nine teacher educators in their first three years as tenure-track professors in an education faculty established a self-study group in 2006-2007. These professors met once a month to link their teaching and service to scholarship through the self-study of teacher education practices. In addition, members met in pairs or small groups to develop…

This article explores whether using reflective dialogue in action learning sets on a foundation degree (FD) in educational support can develop the capacity for reflective practice of the students. Developing a reflective stance in relation to professional practice is a central theme of the programme, which is reinforced by the work-based learning…

As new technologies promise to be an enduring feature of the landscape of teachers' work, we consider how teachers implicitly bring stories forward into their classroom explorations with new media as a part of their "informal learning". By "stories" is meant specific classroom texts as well as preferred teacher practices with those texts. The…

Teacher education students' instructional metacognitive knowledge needs to be well developed to promote both their own learning and their prospective students' learning. In this study, we asked teacher education students to provide answers to the question "What happens in my university classes that helps me to learn?" Students identified…