This book and its accompanying video highlights three interpersonal approaches to instructional improvement, observation skills, and the complete reflective clinical supervision process. Based on the principles of reflective practice, the kit is a professional development tool for educational leaders and staff members. Chapter 1, "Cycles of…

This book extends ethnography beyond the work of university researchers to include classroom teachers, student teachers, and teacher educators. It provides ways for student teachers and others to develop lenses for seeing the patterns and practices of life within classrooms. The book describes how developing "ethnographic eyes" can help student…

This article discusses an action research project that investigated how a 10-year-old boy with learning disabilities, whose first language was Korean, was supported. His individualized instruction involved labeling items in the room, reading sentences that included priority sight words, practicing with consonant blends and vocabulary words, games,…

Discusses results of an action research study of second-grade students' group work which indicated that, when students were not given sample solutions for problems, they were more likely to use higher order thinking, take ownership of strategies, discuss solutions longer, and be more accepting of other views. (MKR)

Reports on the relationship between the seating patterns of students and their observed attitudes toward class activities in an English-as-a-Second-Language class. Discusses issues of physical territoriality, psycholinguistic territoriality, and active participation by students. (CFR)

Asserts that, although research can be a powerful resource in guiding and fueling grass-roots social change, the community-based research enterprise often is contentious. Recommends collaborative research studies in which the researchers and practitioners work together from the project's inception. (CFR)

School reform in the 1990s has been focused on school-based restructuring, with local efforts shown to be more successful than earlier central or remote control approaches. Success has followed changes in teachers' classroom behavior, in the structure of the school, and its school culture. The local school restructuring approach is illustrated…

This book, a research-based text, describes peer observation and assistance (POA), a method designed to isolate behaviors and skills shown to raise student achievement levels and the process by which teachers can help their peers improve performance in these areas. The volume is organized into 10 chapters: (1) Teachers Helping Teachers: The…

This study was conducted to help teachers decide what factors govern high school students' knowledge of geography. Information was gathered about the students' background, including: gender, exposure to a course of study in world history, overall grade point average, travel experience outside the United States, and habits of reading newspapers and…

This paper identifies two broad types of "critical" ethnographic research. One type attempts to empower social actors by providing emic-oriented accounts which tend to emphasize the integrity of their constructs, thus laying the groundwork for a redistribution of social power. The other type attempts to combine analysis of phenomenal, micro-level…

This case study of a central office school improvement initiative in an urban school system examines instructional leadership practices of two junior high school principals. The school-based research focuses on correlates of school effectiveness in "low achieving" settings and the principals' capacity to "reflect-in-action," an ability to make…

This book examines issues and methods for conducting research into the educational resource environment in colleges and universities. That environment is defined as whatever is used to facilitate the learning process, including learning space, support staff, and teaching staff. Chapter 1 is an introduction to the series and lays out the process of…

This collection of papers presents a variety of field-tested examples that use problem-based learning (PBL) for teacher education in many professional development settings. It describes PBL activities for preservice, novice, and experienced educators at all levels. The eight chapters describe teacher educators' experiences using PBL in their…

This paper sets out career-related stories of people and their struggle to make sense of a life through work. They show that career management is not primarily a matching process but, for most, the making of a life the best way one can. The nine stories from five continents have these focuses: a feeling for a career; a career is other people or…

With the existence of 67 monographs and approximately 60 practitioners trained in action research in the western and central parts of Pennsylvania from project years 1995-98, the 1998-99 Section 353 project expanded the action research network (ARN) to include teachers, administrators, and researchers in the northeastern and southeastern parts of…