The idea of teachers and teacher educators engaging in research is not, in itself, new, but in recent years the propagation of this idea seems to have become really popular. This growing popularity brings the risk that practitioner research will degenerate into an increasingly vague and obscure "container concept". The aim of this article is to…

This article examines 14 teacher educators' development of standards-based electronic portfolios. The research focused on the participants' interpretation of the standards and how they conceptualized the portfolio development process in relation to their professional practice. For one year, participants interacted around the Association of Teacher…

This paper describes an arts-based Action Research project in which Forum Theatre (FT) was used to explore classroom management issues with pre-service teachers. Both participants and author were engaged in inquiry: the pre-service teachers tested different management strategies, immediately experiencing the consequences of their actions; the…

Although video self-analysis has been used for years in teacher education, the camera has almost always focused on the preservice teacher. In this study, the researcher videotaped eight preservice teachers four times each during their student-teaching internships. One camera was focused on them while another was focused on their students. Their…

In our pre-service department, university practicum supervisors are faculty members who offer academic, social, and personal support to teacher candidates during their year-long program. Their role is described as one designed primarily to provide formative assessment and feedback to improve classroom practice and reflection on practice. This…

Purpose: Using the analogy of e-learning as "the perfect storm", the aim of this paper is to explore the disruptive nature of e-learning in higher education. Design/methodology/approach: Taking a case study of a university, the paper explores the movement from an e-intensive approach to e-learning into an on-campus blended learning…

The bulk of literature about education places enhancing teacher professionalism at the core of any educational improvement. In fact, researchers in the field of education have premised their arguments on the assumption that raising students' levels of performance necessitates promoting the professional growth of teachers. It is no wonder, then,…

This article discusses self-assessment of gerontology teaching practice. Through a process of self-reflection one may find insight into their teaching and, concomitantly, develop best-practices for enhancing student learning in gerontology. A self-assessment framework is presented, illuminating best-practices in the areas of the lecture-discussion…

The major premise of this article is inspired by Viktor Frankl's words: "The truth is that as the struggle for survival has subsided, the question has emerged--survival for what? Ever more people today have the "means" to live, but no "meaning" to live for." Thousands of students who have come through the author's college courses during the last…

This investigation delineates a multi-year action research agenda designed to develop an instructional model for teaching the nature of science (NOS) to preservice science teachers. Our past research strongly supports the use of explicit reflective instructional methods, which includes Thomas Kuhn's notion of learning by ostention and treating…

The Patchwork Text has emerged as one of the most influential assessment innovations in Higher Education in recent years. As an assessment strategy with the potential to engage a wide range of learners, the patchwork has enjoyed a rising profile in the range of teaching, learning and assessment methods developed in the context of the widening…

In this paper, I offer my own counterstory of matriculating through a teacher education program as an African American student on a predominately White campus as a reference point for thinking through how racism operates through teacher education's dominant discourse and practice of teacher reflection. It is an important story to tell primarily…

The role of social support in child welfare policy and practice continues to engender widespread debate. Yet the moral and philosophical underpinnings of this topical area have received less attention in the literature. This is of concern, not least because academic debates on the "politics of identity" have a significant contribution to make to…

The ubiquitous use of the word transformation to describe the intentions of government policy poses a number of questions, one of which relates to the uncritical and widespread use of the term. Interested in exploring what a "transformed" sector might look like and being in a privileged position of delivering a major element of the…

Measurement is a mathematics skill students encounter often in their daily lives. The act of measuring involves the use of concrete, hands-on materials that students find engaging and appealing. According to Martinie (2004), the best way to teach measurement "is to find or create situations in which students need to measure and let them…