A growing number of educators are focusing their efforts on improving the work environment of teaching. In place of the typical school's norms and practices that isolate teachers from one another, collaborative schools have norms that encourage teachers and principals to cooperate for school improvement. Such schools are characterized by frequent…

This paper discusses the problems of the teaching profession from the perspective of the classroom teacher, and attempts to develop a set of policy recommendations related to improving teaching conditions and teacher effectiveness. Information collection focused on data obtained from in-depth interviews conducted with 73 elementary and secondary…

An analysis of data on teachers indicates coming changes in recruitment and retention of the American teaching force, in the quality of teachers, and in the attractiveness of teaching as a profession. New recruits to teaching are less academically qualified than those who are leaving, and shortages of qualified teachers in subjects such as…

This book offers insights on and techniques for dealing with emotional demands in the classroom, noting how highly effective teachers deal with such demands and how they gain help and support from their colleagues and administrators. Based on extensive interviews with educators and others nationwide, the book explains what gives them energy, how…

In 1990, a survey was conducted of all full-time humanities and social sciences faculty at eight community colleges in the Virginia Community College System (VCCS). The study collected demographic data and examined the relationship between aging (both an individual's chronological age and length of time in the system) and job satisfaction through…

A professor of education returns to the elementary classroom as a teacher's aide and learns that administrators can support teachers by (1) working to eliminate fragmentation in daily routines, (2) protecting teachers from overextension, (3) focusing more on individual students, (4) promoting teacher collegiality, and (5) fashioning a school…

In response to a California State education reform bill that requires professors of methods courses to return to the classroom once every three years, a university profesor of 15 years taught 9th-grade English in Watts. This essay presents nine tips for others who anticipate their own return to teaching. (IW)

Contends that teacher's decisions regarding textbook use can be understood through public choice theory. This theory claims decisions are made balancing competing interests of scarcity, time, costs, benefits, and incentives. Teachers use textbooks because of their efficacy in organizing and providing instructional material. (MJP)

Discusses a survey conducted in the Tatar Republic of the Soviet Union involving over 800 teachers, students, and parents. Reports that the study investigated opinions about teachers' social position. Indicates widespread agreement concerning the teaching profession's low prestige. Explores reasons for the profession's low prestige through an…

Records show that school enrollment for girls is still lagging behind in some areas in the Asia and Pacific region, which poses challenge for the region to achieve Education for All (EFA) by 2015. And girls' labor in the Asia and Pacific region continues to constitute a major obstacle towards gender parity in education, another EFA target. Girls'…

The call for greater diversity among college faculty and administrators is a prominent feature in the literature of higher education and especially of community colleges. For faculty members and administrators who may be the only, or the first, or even the token minority within their division, it is important to resolve what being the "only…

This volume offers nine chapters on focal issues in current urban education that are of a middle-range of abstraction and have long-term consequences for students. Individual chapters provide examples of possible interventions appropriate to the unique context of urban schools. The following chapters correspond to nine problems of practice, which…

This document is the third of three related volumes. They present the rationale, background, and framework for a comprehensive monitoring system being developed for the National Science Foundation. The system is being designed to gather information about the effects of national, state, and local policy actions designed to change the teaching and…

This book examines the nature of teacher professionalism, the continuing professional development of teachers, and the contexts in which this occurs. Using a range of international research and development work, the book discusses how personal and professional contexts promote and inhibit improvement in teaching. It examines the effects of school…

A review of research findings on context variables in the classroom and their effects on student achievement provided a framework upon which to base conclusions on the following factors pertaining to effective teaching: (1) teacher control of the classroom; (2) adjustment of teacher control of learning activities to student abilities; (3)…