The purpose of this study was to investigate socio-cultural factors underpinning curriculum change by examining teacher beliefs in the context of professional development. Scottish teachers in the study were participating in policy implementation based on formative assessment. Teachers were selected who were positive about the formative assessment…

This article, based on six years of participant observation, provides a close-up view of two learning communities in an urban elementary school. It provides a case study of both learning communities, laying out how teachers participating in them learned to respond differently to difficult problems and dilemmas, to change their language and…

Teachers are regularly exposed to a number of new and innovative technologies, ideas, philosophies, systems, and experiences from the time they enter teacher education to the time they leave the profession. A predictable result of this increased exposure is that teachers are regularly faced with decisions about whether to incorporate one or more…

This paper discusses school development as collaboration between local schools and universities based on complementary needs. I examine a 10 year case study of a long-term relationship between an elementary school and a university in a town in Sweden. The relationship is jointly constructed and mediated by local, national, and international…

The purpose of the U.S. Department of Education's online newsletter "The Education Innovator" is to promote innovative practices in education; to offer features on promising programs and practices; to provide information on innovative research, schools, policies, and trends; and to keep readers informed of key Department priorities and activities.…

Waves of enthusiasm for technological innovations that promise to revitalize teaching and learning are at least a century old. Unfortunately, the record of accomplishment for the many varieties of hardware and software introduced into schools over the decades is remarkably thin. Today's promoters of technology in education tend to forget similar…

Contemporary innovations in education tend to be information based or computer driven. A complete curriculum, however, needs flexibility in order to foster skills for shifting from one context to another. Face-to-face skills play an important role in the governance of democratic societies, and "having a good understanding" of something involves…

Sloyd pedagogy was introduced towards the close of the 18th century to Icelandic educators. Subsequently craft was established as a specific subject aimed at general education. In the beginning craft was called "school industry," to distinguish it from "home industry" whose aim was to help homes to be self-sufficient for…

The importance of studying what affects adult learners and the use computer is motivated by the fact that technological innovations are being churned out in geometrical progression in the 21st century. Not to be computer literate is to be in the realm of darkness. Despite the popularity of computer training some problems still inhibit adults in…

The aim of this study is to understand the design of professional development programmes in teacher-based and context-based chemistry curriculum innovations. Firstly, the goals of these programmes are discussed and related to the concept of empowerment. Next, in a selection of empirical studies, four general strategies for professional development…

Although media literacy represents an innovative venue for school-based antismoking programming, studies have not systematically compared student impressions of these and traditional programs. This study utilized data from a randomized trial comparing these two types of programs. After each program, students responded to three open-ended questions…

Building on the claim that teachers need to know how innovative instructional approaches work to be able to adapt them to their own classrooms, design research is presented as a research method that aims to offer exactly that kind of information. We elaborate design research that aims to develop a local instruction theory--a theory about the…

President Barack Obama's call for innovation to improve the nation's schools strikes a chord with many in policy circles, who are already discussing how the federal government can play a role not only in supporting the expansion of what works, but also in creating solutions to unsolved problems. But some experts are pointing out that significant…

We describe a new approach to teaching introductory biology. Our introductory experience for undergraduates is a laboratory course that is entirely inquiry and discovery based. We introduce our students to fundamental concepts in biology in the framework of three multi-week laboratory modules, each of which is an open-ended investigation of a…

Teachers who are positive deviants are the most effective teachers, able to produce results and solutions to problems that others in the learning community cannot. As a result, students in their classrooms usually produce assessment scores that are higher than those of students in their colleagues' classrooms. Teachers willing to learn from their…