The authors investigated patterns of change in three middle grade teachers' beliefs and practices about motivation in mathematics during a yearlong professional development project with a university researcher. Four principles of motivation (and corresponding instructional strategies) were introduced in this sequence: supporting students'…

The challenge faced by all community colleges is how to increase student success, whether success is defined in terms of graduating with a degree or certificate, transferring, or retaining a job. With approximately 40% of the nation's undergraduates pursuing higher education through the community college (52% when one considers public institutions…

Teachers' social networks can play an important role in teacher learning and organizational change. But what influences teachers' networks? Why do some teachers have networks that are likely to support individual and organizational change, while others do not? This study is a first step in answering this question. We focus on how district policy…

This case study explored the use of students' personal mobile devices in the classroom for learning. The context was a district with an initiative called Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT), whereby students regularly utilized their personal technology as part of the curriculum. The focus of this study was to better understand how students' personal…

Students' thinking is an integral part of English language pedagogy. Teachers need the pedagogical competence to teach thinking effectively. This research suggests a program to develop the teaching skills for thinking of pre-service teachers (fourth-year college students) in the English Department of the Faculty of Education at Princess Noura…

Teachers in a middle school and a high school with high percentages of English language learners showed evidence of transformative learning during the 2 years in which they collaborated in an ongoing professional development activity called "learning labs," which include focused discussion of observations of colleagues' classrooms.…

This qualitative dissertation research explored the case studies of four novice special education teachers who were the primary instructors for English language arts for students in grades three through eight with an I.E.P. This study addressed the teachers' perspectives, beliefs, practices, and related induction needs concerning their…

This report provides a portrait of children who entered Head Start for the first time in fall 2009 and completed a year in the program in spring 2010. It also describes their family backgrounds and the classrooms and programs that serve them. Data are drawn from the 2009 cohort of the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES), a…

In New Zealand and internationally claims are being made about the potential for information and communication technologies (ICTs) to transform teaching and learning. However, the theoretical underpinnings explaining the complex interplay between the content, pedagogy and technology a teacher needs to consider must be expanded. This article…

In this study, qualitative evidence is collected--through classroom observations and teacher and student interviews--to study the effect of metacognition and the interaction between students' observable cognitive behaviour and the instructional task. This qualitative data is analysed to identify what factors support and improve students'…

This article develops an expanded, collaborative and structured view of the process of critiquing observed lesson fragments and shows how this process can be used as a model for developing students' understanding and thinking about teaching and learning processes. The authors introduce Carter's (2007) notion of a meta-genre, "[a] way of doing…

This research focuses on read-aloud discussions in the classroom of an exemplary second-grade teacher, Mae Graham, during an academic year. We found the classroom environment Mae created, along with her instructional moves, fostered engagement and student-initiated talk. Our analysis affirms the importance of teachers' language in building…

Studies of primary education within the UK have shown that small groups can feature within classrooms; however, equivalent research within secondary education remains scarce. Research has established effective group work approaches, yet secondary teachers may encounter difficulties employing approaches tied to parameters embedded within primary…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how science faculty members' belief systems about inquiry-based teaching changed through their experience in a professional development program. The program was designed to support early career science faculty in learning about inquiry and incorporating an inquiry-based approach to teaching…

Universities and schools are struggling with the critical issues surrounding teacher quality, student learning, and the gap between research and practice. This study employed a collective case-study design to explore the impact of leadership teams and school-university partnerships on teacher leadership, professional development, and overall…