Professional development is a recognized approach to improving the quality of instruction in schools. The goal of professional development is to increase teachers' knowledge and improve their practices, which lead to enhanced student learning. The problem with providing staff development is the high cost incurred by presenters' fees, and…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate teachers' perceptions about the impact of the McREL Teacher Evaluation System on their professional growth. The sample comprised 15 teachers of students in Kindergarten to Grade 4 in a suburban New Jersey school district who participated in Year 1 implementation of a new standards-based…

Although online tutorials are becoming commonplace for language teaching, very few studies to date have provided insights into learners' behaviours in synchronous online interactions from their own perspective. This study employs eyetracking technology to investigate ten learners' attention during synchronous online language learning in a…

This research aims to understand language learning strategies of Thai adult learners and factors affecting their strategy use. The participants are forty officers of General Service Division of the Council of State of Thailand, attending an English training course for developing their work potential. The data were collected through the…

Prior learning assessment (PLA) methods can help adult students earn college credit for what they already know. PLA can be an important offering by postsecondary degree programs because it can save students time and money. In addition, the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning's (CAEL's) "Fueling the Race to Postsecondary Success"…

While people might not be familiar with the term "voluntary arts", they are probably either involved with some voluntary arts activity themselves or they know someone who is. They use "voluntary arts" to mean any situation in which someone is voluntarily participating in an art form for pleasure, social reasons, skills…

The provision of ODL is now largely available in most part of the world, and is just a matter of choice for working adults to pursue. With the competing priorities of work, home, and school, adult learners everywhere desire a high degree of flexibility and accessibility. The structure of ODL provides learners with the greatest flexibility. It…

The purpose of the study is to better understand the role of physicality, interactivity, and interface effects in learning with digital content. Drawing on work in cognitive science, human-computer interaction, and multimedia learning, the study argues that interfaces that promote physical interaction can provide "conceptual leverage"…

This dissertation examines the experiences of effective Federal Government leaders in developing their emotional intelligence (EI). Using a conceptual framework of adult learning, leadership, and leader development, this study focused on experiential and situated learning to discern how EI develops. The researcher in the context of this…

There is currently a small body of research on the experiences of participants, both facilitators and learners, during simulated mock codes (cardiac arrest) in the healthcare setting. This study was based on a practitioner's concerns that mock codes are facilitated differently among educators, mock codes are not aligned with andragogy theory of…

All over the World most effective methods for teaching reading to beginning-level adults have been applied. My continuing challenge has been to determine how reading acquisition research can be applied to teaching reading to adults. In this article, I describe the techniques I have found most useful; I hope other teachers working with beginning…

This article is an excerpt from "A Playbook for Professional Learning: Putting the Standards Into Action" (Learning Forward, 2012). Written by Learning Forward Executive Director Stephanie Hirsh and Scholar Laureate Shirley Hord, "A Playbook for Professional Learning" provides those who work in professional learning with readily accessible…

Contrary to the concept of school readiness as achieving a particular set of attributes considered essential for educational success, this article is grounded in the assumption that all children are ready to learn, but what they are expected to learn varies widely from one cultural setting and historic period to another. The authors challenge the…

In Adult Learners' Week last year there was a first-time national award, sponsored by Pearson, for the Adult Apprentice of the Year. There were 81 nominees from across the age range and from a multitude of jobs. Staff at NIACE were keen to find out more about their stories so they analysed their nominations, asked for more information and…

The author would like to think that, in twenty-first century Britain, the case for adult learning was firmly established and no-one was in any doubt of its value. Having spent nearly 20 years before he became an MP working as a part-time lecturer and tutor with the Open University, and seeing the transformation that it could bring to his students,…