The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has invested in the development and dissemination of high-quality formative assessment tools to support teachers' incorporation of the Core Common State Standards (CCSS) into their classroom instruction. Lessons from the first generation of standards-based reforms suggest that intense attention to high quality…

Objectives: This teaching idea is designed to increase students' understanding about the principles of a Coordinated School Health Program and apply these principles as they plan a community health program. As students work through the planning process, they will address many of the AAHPERD/AAHE Standards for Health Education Programs. Target…

This article proposes the Teacher Observation Programme for in-service teacher trainees. The program is reflective, collaborative, and builds confidence. It enables teachers to grow in their ability to self-evaluate. Trainees who have made decisions about their own observation, who have created and used their own observational tools, and who have…

Social-interactive Writing for English Language Learners (SWELL) is collaborative writing based on Topping's Paired Writing Method. The method was changed to meet the needs of English language learners. In both methods, pairs are formed according to proficiency, pairing a more advanced student (a Helper) with a less advanced one (a Writer). The…

The purpose of this research project was to improve the attendance of high school students using teacher initiatives. There were two teachers and about 140 students involved. The interventions used were improving lesson plans, developing better relationships with students and positive incentives. The students at this school had a history of very…

While students generally recognize that racism exists on an individual level, the instructor's challenge is to both elucidate patterns of discrimination and to expose their corollary: unearned and unrecognized systemic privilege of the dominant group. Unaware that their sense of entitlement advantages them at the expense of people of color, some…

The purpose of this study was to determine barriers, roles, and information source preferences for teaching agricultural biotechnology topics. Agricultural science teachers were described primarily as 37 year-old males who had taught for 12 years, had bachelor's degrees, and had lived or worked on a farm or ranch. Equipment was perceived as the…

The purpose of this study was to provide guidance to policy-makers about the standards that might be appropriate for accrediting teacher education programmes. The study was commissioned by the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT), a statutory body established in 2001 by the Victorian state government with responsibility for the registration…

Field experiences are critical to teacher learning and enhance the effectiveness of methods courses; however, when methods courses are offered in the summer, traditional school-based field experiences are not possible. This article describes an alternative campus-based experience created as part of an elementary science methods course. The Summer…

Poetry should be an integral part of children's learning in elementary school. This article explains the classroom structures and routines through which third-grade students in an inner-city school became familiar with poetic language and learned to appreciate the artistry of poetry. Most of the students were struggling readers. Reading poetry…

Mini-lessons (brief, informative explanations that demonstrate what readers do) are a key instructional practice in meaning centered reading programs. The content of the mini-lessons is determined by the needs of learners. In procedural mini-lessons, teachers explain the steps for successfully completing a task or performing a reading-related…

A natural history museum is a building where animals, plants, minerals, and other things in nature are kept and exhibited for study. This document is a curriculum guide to provide a variety of activities for educators and their students to use not only when visiting the International Wildlife Museum (Tuscon, Arizona), but also with natural history…

Children are naturally curious about their bodies and how they work. This book utilizes this natural interest to usher children into an age-appropriate study of the human body. The guided discovery lesson plans in this book consist of four parts: the question, the discovery process, the summary of what scientists know, and a real-life application.…

The history of instructional multimedia systems development includes many difficulties--authorial uncertainty about how to order concepts, the misplaced focus of so-called "intelligent tutors," the sometimes disconcerting proliferation of products, and financial constraints. Against this background, this paper discusses the project which…

This document is a collection of activity-based mathematics lessons for grades K-4 from the "Ideas" department in "Arithmetic Teacher: Mathematics Education through the Middle Grades." Each lesson includes background information, objectives, directions, extensions, and student worksheets. A matrix is included which correlates…