Lesson study, a form of teacher professional development, has grown in popularity in the United States over the past decade. A key tenet of lesson study is that teachers will increase their knowledge of effective instruction by planning a lesson and analyzing its enactment. This work describes a method of representing conversations graphically…

A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a high performance computer-aided chain of software which enables us to understand, interpret, capture, update, map, and display natural and human-originated events on Earth and allows us to bring out such phenomena in a form of synthesis. Therefore, a GIS is an important information system in which…

In this paper, we describe a model for systematically improving the mathematics preparation of elementary teachers, one lesson at a time. We begin by identifying a serious obstacle for teacher educators: the absence of mechanisms for developing a shareable knowledge base for teacher preparation. We propose our model as a way to address this…

Typical of many teacher preparation programs, the preservice teachers at Lander University in Greenwood, South Carolina, engage in a number of field experiences prior to their extended student teaching. During the field experience that immediately precedes student teaching, each preservice teacher spends 50 hours working with students in a single…

After 10 years of No Child Left Behind standards-focused education, mathematics scores have improved only marginally for elementary-aged students. Students who developed a solid conceptual mathematics foundation at the elementary level succeeded later in higher-level mathematics courses; thus, educators have sought ways to increase mathematics…

Instead of piling on one new reform fad after another, here at last is a book that boils down solutions for improved schools to the most powerful, simple actions and structures that ensure you prepare all students for college, careers, and citizenship. Best-selling ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) author and renowned…

With the new edition of this activity book--the companion to Judith Birsh's bestselling text, "Multisensory Teaching of Basic Language Skills"--students and practitioners will get the practice they need to use multisensory teaching effectively with students who have dyslexia and other learning disabilities. Ideal for both pre-service teacher…

Between 2002 and 2007, data showed that 33% of alternatively certified teachers within a Florida school district withdrew from the profession within their first three years, and up to 40% of teachers withdrew within their first five years. In response, this study explored the causes for the retention and attrition of alternatively certified…

Our purpose was to investigate the efficacy of using reflective practice to guide our action research study of incorporating formative assessment into middle school science teaching and learning. Using participatory action research, we worked collaboratively to incorporate formative assessment into two instructional units, and then engaged in…

How does teachers' technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) inform their instructional planning? How can this knowledge be enhanced? In an interpretivist study of experienced secondary social studies teachers' planning, we sought to discover clues to the nature and development of these teachers' TPACK-in-action as it was expressed in…

Place-based science education engages with the laboratories of complex reality where natural processes combine with social practice, going beyond the physical world, to encompass the meanings and sense of attachment local residents feel for places. This brief report describes how a university science methods class in a primary teacher training…

This study focuses on an analysis of a professional development program known as lesson study via data obtained during an in-service professional development program for secondary school science teachers. The purpose of this study was to examine the self-efficacy beliefs of one group of science teachers related to their experiences in a lesson…

This comprehensive, reader-friendly text demonstrates how personal connections can be incorporated into social studies education while meeting standards of the National Council for the Social Studies. Praised for its wealth of strategies that go beyond social studies content teaching--including classroom strategies, pedagogical techniques,…

Recent state legislation in Michigan mandates that all graduating seniors successfully pass algebra I and II. Numerous initiatives have been enacted to help mathematics teachers meet this challenge, yet school principals have had little preparation for the necessary curricular and instructional changes. To address this unmet need, university-based…

Although teaching games for understanding has been increasingly incorporated into physical education curricula around the world, many physical education teachers find it challenging to provide students with learning opportunities that foster critical thinking. Specifically, teachers have difficulty identifying problems in and potential solutions…