Getting personal requires that teachers do what they can to give life to their talents and dreams. Doing so means thinking about what they value in teaching and searching out practices that bring success and satisfaction. Getting personal asks that teachers trust their instincts and intuitions and requires that they learn from what they do. The…

The study investigated variant and invariant physics teaching patterns across time and topics. It is assumed that the analysis perspective is decisive for identifying variant and invariant teaching patterns. Therefore, we focused on three perspectives: (1) organization of activities, (2) quality of teacher--student interactions, and (3) students'…

In this article, the author relates his own experiences as a beginning teacher. Like many hopefuls that began as student-teachers and interns, this author was tormented during the first weeks of his teaching career. For the first several weeks, the author found how he was completely out of element as a classroom teacher. Recalling other teachers'…

In 2004 the Australia Council of Deans of Education (ACDE) released a report entitled "New teaching, new learning: A vision for Australian education". This report was prepared on behalf of the ACDE by Mary Kalantzis and Andrew Harvey, respectively the President and Executive Officer of the ACDE. The argument put forward in the report is…

Contemporary teacher education, like other aspects of tertiary education, involves regimes for assessing quality of teaching. These regimes include student assessment of and feedback on teaching. These are widely considered problematic, and yet there are few signs that teacher educators reject the notion that student responses have something of…

The objectives of this project were to: evaluate the impact of demographic descriptors (gender, class rank and final grade) on student's self perceived level of engagement in classroom activities; measure the impact of varying teaching styles on a student's likelihood of correctly answering a knowledge based question and: assessing the…

Like many countries building up human and technological resources, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has embarked on the goal of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) to its citizens. One goal for the KSA Ministry of Education is increasing acceptance rates at teacher colleges for both genders specializing in English, in addition to…

Nine New Zealand secondary schools participated in the OtagoNet project, using videoconferencing technologies to deliver courses to multiple sites. This paper reports findings from a study conducted between 2001 and 2004 to evaluate the effectiveness of OtagoNet. It was found that videoconferencing technology had a significant impact on pedagogy…

The author provides a theoretical construct and shares personal experiences of how teacher-educators should conduct a self-examination to understand better how they view the educational potential and success of students who are racially, culturally, and ethnically diverse. Theories presented include a brief introduction to social identity…

Some time ago, the author collected data for a study on students' experiences of preparation for assessment of their art portfolios at the high school level in Canada, England, and The Netherlands. Participants with whom the author had conversations in Canada described varied by mostly rewarding experiences. However, one student's description of…

This article explores the social and professional dynamics "when teachers face teachers" seeking to impact colleagues' instructional practices to improve student learning. Specifically, it examines a group of 40 teachers leading staff development sessions at their schools in an effort to bring more literacy strategies into the pedagogies of…

Current research on teacher clarity as an attribute of effective teaching is reviewed. An example of a clear teacher is given. Implications for teacher education are drawn. (MT)

Research by behavioral scientists suggests that the hemispheres of the brain mature at different rates in boys and in girls up to about age 10. A change in teaching style to accommodate different learning styles benefitted all members of a second-grade class, in particular a boy with learning problems. (MT)