This paper reports on a model in which graduate students were encouraged to regard their classrooms as laboratories to replicate earlier research on the use of examples in teaching concepts. The De Cecco and Crawford (1974) concept teaching model, which requires teachers to define the attributes and values of concepts and to reduce the number of…

This paper presents one sixth-grade teacher's efforts to advance curriculum at a Hawaii elementary school through continuous monitoring of the effectiveness of her learning and teaching program. Deliberate and careful reflections in personal teaching journals, meetings with an educational consultant, school administrators, and teaching colleagues,…

Students in an undergraduate course in abnormal psychology annually employ a cooperative active learning model to conduct a 4- to 6-day, values-oriented public policy forum (PPF) within the class itself on a general topic of concern to the field of mental health. A comprehensive and structured five-phase model for a PPF is detailed for course…

Over the last 15 years or so, research into measurement error has begun to consider not just whether the test items fit, but whether the people who answer the items fit. Attempts to systematically identify people who do not fit the typical pattern have led to several "person-fit statistics." This digest describes the need for such…

To examine the relationship among the Principles of Adult Learning Scale (PALS), Educational Orientation Questionnaire (EOQ), and Philosophy of Adult Education Inventory (PAEI), the three instruments were administered to 111 graduate adult education students. The instruments had similar purposes: PAEI measured philosophical orientation relative to…

Definitions and short explanations of key concepts in the field of instructional evaluation are presented. Evaluation is defined as the process of determining the value of programs, projects, materials, and personnel. It is distinguished from research in that the aims of research are less time- and situation-specific, attempting to uncover…

Taking as its guiding principle that through peer coaching new teachers can offer each other valuable feedback as they try out teaching techniques in the classroom, this book reports on a longitudinal study in peer coaching. The book aims to give teacher educators a new method for encouraging reflective thinking and professional growth in…

This paper reviews research on teaching practicums and describes research-based efforts of the University of Waikato in New Zealand to make the practicum component more effective. Changes in the practicum component being implemented include clarifying the relationship between theory and practice; improving the communication among schools,…

Noting that reading instruction in the last years of the 20th century is still characterized by controversy, this book presents 18 essays that examine the best available research evidence about what is known--and what needs to be learned--about the teaching of reading and how children learn to read. Topics of the essays include whole language,…

Implementing the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) and/or the full inclusion philosophy (which advocates disabled students participating in regular classrooms) creates new needs and places new demands on public school personnel. This paper presents a review of research studies that examined the extent to which administrators had knowledge of…

Teaching practice in schools is an essential component of the professional practice courses for primary student teachers at the University of Waikato (New Zealand). During the first three years of their training, students have a combination of short term placement in normal schools, and longer blocks of teaching practice in other schools. During…

Describing how the experiences of nine cognitive researchers have influenced college writing classrooms, this book demonstrates the critical role of the learner in interpreting and responding to the texts they read, the tasks they are assigned, and the feedback they receive from instructors, readers, and collaborators. Growing out of a project at…

This paper addresses education reform efforts, specifically the need to improve schooling by improving the status, power, and working conditions of teachers through professional development programs. Two issues which continue to undermine the authenticity and social value of efforts to promote teacher development are addressed: (1) underneath the…

This paper, which is intended to assist adult literacy practitioners interested in conducting research about their programs, discusses the four stages of the action research process: identifying questions to guide the research, collecting information to answer the questions, analyzing the information collected, and sharing the results with others.…

This book describes how theater can create an impetus for productive learning across the curriculum. Dorothy Heathcote's "mantle of the expert" approach is discussed in which teachers and students explore, in role, the knowledge they already have about a problem or task while making new discoveries along the way. The book also presents a…