Surveyed were 220 teachers in grades one-three in 11 states on their use of 11 devices for teaching mathematics. The percent of teachers who never or seldom used the listed manipulatives ranged from 40.8 to 74.7. (MNS)

The study of teachers as decision-makers is a recent paradigm in educational research. This decision-making approach considers the teacher as an active professional engaged in various decision-making activities prior to and during instruction. This paper describes a naturalistic research design employed in a recent dissertation that investigated…

Research on classroom reading practices reveals a heavy emphasis on teacher monitoring and management of materials. Little evidence exists of teacher explanation in reading, and little is known about the qualitative dimensions of such instruction. With this in mind, a study was designed to provide descriptions of explanations used by effective…

The Primary Mathematics Education Enhancement Program (PMEEP) is an early childhood teacher enhancement project funded by the National Science Foundation. It is a collaborative project of Kent State University and 11 school districts in a primarily rural midwestern county that has recently been classified as Appalachia. At the conclusion of 2…

A case study of a teacher as a naturalistic inquirer is presented. A class in naturalistic inquiry methods was offered to practicing teachers and other graduate students during a 15-week semester. During the first two or three weeks, students read extensively about qualitative methods and identified a possible site to conduct a study. The…

A third-grade teacher and a teacher educator argue that, in an elementary mathematics class in which the teacher is encouraging the children to communicate and justify their mathematical ideas, the features of a mathematical task shape the mathematical discourse. They conjecture that divergent tasks, problems with many correct answers, may…

This descriptive study investigates the variability in the curriculum pacing decisions of classroom teachers. The effects on the reading achievement and performance gains of first and second grade students in a compensatory education program program are examined. Data were collected from: (1) the Metropolitan Readiness Test results used to select…

This study examined factors that predict a general education teacher's efficacy beliefs for instructing students with learning and behavior problems and whether a teacher's perceived efficacy has a stronger direct effect on reported success than other variables. One hundred twenty-eight second grade teachers completed a survey instrument designed…