There is a rich history of researchers developing curricular materials aimed at enhancing student learning in American classrooms. Though many of these innovations have been successful on a small scale, institutionalizing them so they become part of a district's instructional culture has been a challenge. As large districts try to scale up and…

This article reports on the experiences of six participants in a Master's degree in Education (M.Ed.) programme based at the University of Exeter who had all contributed to a collection of academic papers on educational research in a distributed community. The programme was a distance learning one which had a special focus on application of ideas…

This collaborative self-study, told through email excerpts and reflections, explores a teacher educator's return to high school teaching. In this study, we juxtapose our voices and alternate between past and present to develop insights that reveal how going back can lead to moving forward with respect to educating prospective teachers. While the…

Educators are continuously challenged to increase their pedagogical effectiveness when teaching adult learners. Neo-Piagetian theory and research, based on Piaget's classic work, provides promising concepts and tools to help educators enhance their pedagogical knowledge and competence when teaching adults. Consequently, through research findings…

Teacher educators are increasingly experiencing conflicts between external demands and their ideas about preparing students to teach. This paper reports on ways in which such educators promote learning in their students, and how their practical teaching methods relate to their professional views on teaching. This paper argues that the teaching…

Formative research is used to inform intervention development, but the processes of transmitting results to intervention planners and incorporating information into intervention designs are not well documented. The authors describe how formative research results from the Trial of Activity for Adolescent Girls (TAAG) were transferred to planners to…

This study examines the theory-and-practice connection model in mentor preparation in the context of two mentor preparation programmes in Hong Kong. The 30- and the 60-hour mentoring support development (MSD) programmes share a common conceptualization of mentoring--with the improvement of teaching and learning as the core of mentoring--yet they…

Although constructivism is a concept that has been embraced by many teachers over the past 15 years, the meanings that are attached to this term are varied and often inadequately understood. Teachers need to have a sound understanding of what constructivism means to evaluate its promise and to use it knowledgeably and effectively. This paper…

In response to the technology and information explosion, practice-based learning and improvement is emerging within the medical field to deliver systematic practice-linked improvements. However, its emergence has been inhibited by the slow acceptance of evidence-based medicine among physicians, who are reluctant to embrace proven high-performance…

National and statewide research indicates that there is a special role for schools in preparing youth to become active, engaged participants in a democratic society. Unlike many of the roles that schools have assumed, this is not a new role; it is a role that was envisioned by the founding fathers. The results of several national studies strongly…

When educators, trainers, and human resource development (HRD) practitioners are asked to produce evidence that supports the productivity of the training enterprise, they are often frustrated by the lack of simple and effective methods for assessment. While administrators in an organization are likely to know exactly how much training costs, they…

This study is about what supervisors perceive as crucial aspects of quality in supervising students writing their bachelor theses. The questions on quality are related to a scientific perspective, a learning perspective, a societal perspective and a social perspective. The study demonstrates that the criteria on science varied considerably,…

In this paper the authors focus on one early-career teacher, co-author Natalie Gibson, whose initial teaching experiences were mediated by educational settings shaped by these different and often conflicting traditions. Their study of Natalie's early-career trajectory is concerned with understanding her effort to develop a conception of…

The Wilderness Education Association (WEA) helps people enjoy and protect our nation's most precious resource: Our wilderness areas. The WEA has been training and certifying outdoor leaders around the world for nearly 30 years, teaching students safely and effectively to lead groups in the outdoors without harming the environment. In addition,…

This article argues that "new literacies" is a useful construct for recognizing and understanding the extent to which changes in the current conjuncture are extending social practices of using codes for making and exchanging meanings in directions that warrant serious rethinking of how and why we research literacies. It provides a…