In a time of increased accountability, a tightened curriculum, and fewer curricular choices for students, technology education in the United States is in the position of defending itself by "carving a niche" in the school curriculum. Justifying the place of technology education is becoming increasingly difficult, as there has been little…

This article presents a visual documentation tool for the observation of art classes. The documentation of an art class, like the documentation of any active class, is a complex task that requires focusing on clearly designated components. Quick structured sketching, as proposed here, is able to reflect varied simultaneous activities of teachers…

The purpose of this research is to identify teaching strategies and practices that impact the vocabulary and language development for English Language Learners. Today, there are over 3.5 million non-English speaking students enrolled in public classrooms and the number has continued to climb over the past decade. Many ELL students live in poverty…

As education policy in the U.S. focuses increasingly on the quality of classroom instruction, there is a growing need to identify valid constructs and develop reliable tools that measure student opportunities to learn academic knowledge and skills. The purpose of this study is to examine the relative contributions of two different classroom…

Although teacher research has gained increased attention as a promising approach to improving teachers, many teachers find it challenging to research their own classrooms. Video has great potential to support teacher research because of its unique capability to capture the elusive classroom practice. In this article, we documented the role of…

This article describes some outcomes of a nine-month design-based research study into the professional development of 24 numeracy teachers with post-16 learners. Teachers analysed research-based principles for teaching, and engaged in a design-research process by testing and refining teaching activities to embody these principles. Data from…

In this qualitative study, the author explored the concept of differentiation in urban, suburban, and rural language arts classrooms. The overall goal of understanding how differentiation occurred in these classrooms led to the following specific intentions: (1) to identify teachers' understandings of differentiation, (2) to understand their…

This study capitalizes on recent advances in the reliable and valid measurement of classroom-level social processes known to influence children's social-emotional and academic development and addresses a number of limitations in our current understanding of teacher- and intervention-related impacts on elementary school classroom processes. A…

The implementation of a social-emotional philosophy in any early childhood program plays out differently in every classroom. This study focused on the teaching team and children in a single Head Start classroom as they interacted with each other, with families, and with administrators, particularly in relation to the use of Conscious…

In this interpretivist case study, four professors who have effectively used clickers to teach chemistry at a large university in a western state were observed and interviewed. Seventeen 50-minute class periods were observed and four 40-50 minute interviews were conducted. Having an institutional culture that promotes the use of clickers and…

The goal of this study is to gain a detailed understanding of the experience of instructors who have been using Tablet PCs (TPCs) for their teaching practice. The study examines the lived experience of 28 faculty members from a College of Engineering which is promoting the diffusion of TPCs in the classroom. Phenomenology was adopted to answer the…

This study examines how the use of self- and peer-assessment within a girls-only biology class can support students' motivation. The study took place over 22 weeks in a rural comprehensive school, and the participants were girls between 15 and 16 years of age. Data included questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, notes from lesson observations…

The notion of "student citizen" is implicit in a range of national and provincial policy documents in South Africa, with citizenship promoted as both an expected outcome of schooling and an encouraged practice within schools. This paper provides an account of how policy on student citizenship was translated differently into practice in…

When student end-of-course ratings are not commensurate with instructor skill and effort, one possible reason may be that students question the instructor's authority. It is proposed here that such doubts about authority are reinforced by specific instructor behaviors. This pilot study attempts to identify these behaviors in the interest of…

Although many states in the United States are adopting policies that require all students to complete college-preparatory science classes to graduate from high school, such policies have not always led to improved student outcomes. There is much speculation about the cause of the dismal results, but there is scant research on the processes by…