The Teacher-Centered Systemic Reform model (TCSR) recognizes teaching context, teacher characteristics, teacher thinking, and their interactions as influential factors in attempts to implement classroom reform. Using the TCSR model, teachers' personal practical theories, and conceptual change as a framework, the authors of this article studied…

In this article, the author features the Family Literacy Center, a service-learning project at the University of Utah's English education program. For the author and her students, Family Literacy Center has become a place to investigate the role of teacher-student or mentor-student relationships in learning and literacy development. The goals of…

Teachers everywhere are being held accountable for their professional actions through the test-driven curricula sweeping the nation. The National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE, 2002) makes it clear that promotion of reflective practice is an important component of teacher education programs. This multiple case study…

This qualitative case study examined web-based portfolio development in the service of supporting reflective thinking and learning within the innovative context of Professional Development Schools. Specifically, this study investigated the nature of the evidence-based philosophies developed by prospective teachers as the central part of the…

Teaching advanced students, such as MBAs, in foreign environments and in compressed schedules presents additional challenges that are not present in home-country classes. To be successful, teachers must modify their home instructional strategies and tactics to match the backgrounds of the students and the teaching environment. This article…

In this article, I--a White, French-immersion teacher-researcher--engage in a reflective examination of my research and teaching practices involving African American students. My critical reflection of my research examines the instruments used in my comparative study of African American students' experiences in the French-immersion context and the…

This paper presents a case study of four students working in pairs during a 1-year postgraduate Initial Teacher Education (ITE) course in the United Kingdom. The study examined the subjects' images and assumptions and developing teaching styles at the start of the year, and analyzed what they learned from each other during the school-based parts…

In an effort to provide prospective teachers with chances to reflect on their professional competence, and to demonstrate their teaching effectiveness and growth, the teacher education program at California State University, Los Angeles, decided to require students to develop portfolios. All students were introduced to the portfolio format during…

This book is a practical guide for teachers at the postsecondary level to improve their teaching by utilizing the principles of adult learning and becoming critically reflective teachers. Chapter 1 lays out the concept of reflection in general terms and then focuses on explaining what is distinctive about critical reflection. Chapter 2 explains…

Action research is an approach to professional development and improved student learning in which teachers systematically reflect on their work, seek feedback from colleagues, and make changes in their practice. Several benefits of action research have been cited: (1) teachers investigate their own practice in a new way, looking at what children…

This research report presents 10 papers offering views of Finnish, Swedish, British, Danish, and United States educators on teaching and teacher education. The essays are as follows: (1) "The Missing Content in Teaching: Focus on What Teachers Reflect Upon While They Are Teaching" (Mikael Alexandersson); (2) "What Is Reflection? On…

A teacher with a new Ph.D. recounts her experience in returning to her previous role as a full-time teacher as she attempts also to conduct a teacher research program. She recounts her previous unsatisfactory experience co-teaching on a part-time basis while doing graduate research and her realization of the need to be the real teacher to conduct…

Two teachers' experience with using reflective journals to help both teachers and students reflect on the teaching and learning processes is described. The technique was implemented in English-as-a-Second Language (ESL) classes in a Japanese university. Specific guidelines were established for students, and the journal format was a worksheet…

This paper examines definitions of reflection and the concept of reflective teaching, and then documents attempts to implement a reflective approach taken by second-year undergraduate teaching students at the Australian Catholic University, Queensland Division. Sixteen students completed their first field experience, which included 12 half-day…

Programs designed collaboratively between school systems and schools of education provide a context for facilitating the integration of preservice classroom instruction with experience in the field, as well as making university classroom instruction more sensitive to current issues in public education. This paper describes an emerging model…