As new technologies shape and are shaped by human practices, educators and researchers must consider the impact that participating in social media--to access, reflect upon, question, evaluate and disseminate scholarship--is having on their professional development and practices. This paper investigates how members of the educational research…

Science teacher professional development is complex. Phases in a teacher's career necessitate different professional learning opportunities. Furthermore, knowledge bases, practices, and attributes need to be cultivated during these times. For science teachers, it is not always evident how to link professional learning opportunities progressively…

This article is written for educators who serve as teachers, administrators, policy-makers in childcare settings, schools, classrooms, teacher preparation programs, programs that prepare educational researchers, and universities. Its purpose is to provide background, rationale, and support for individuals within those institutions to address the…

A wide range of research has examined trust building within corporations, businesses, and schools, and between and within organizations, but little research has been conducted that examines trust formation between university researchers and classroom-based teachers. Using a qualitative methodological approach, the authors examined the development…

This paper investigates the history and concept of liberalism from its first uses to its most modern incarnations. The paper aims to serve as a primer for educators and educational researchers to better understand liberalism and its place as a foundational and controversial discourse in politics, social science, and education. Through reference to…

The study reported here concerns 4 years of collaboration between secondary school teachers and academic researchers, constituting an emerging community of inquiry into mathematics teaching. In the article, the process of forming of this community is discussed, focusing on the reflective activity developed by its members as well as the tensions…

In this commentary I briefly describe the articles, suggest three themes that unite the works and two questions raised by them, and then elaborate some challenges that these studies pose for researchers and practitioners. The themes include situating these articles in the history of the study of teaching and exploring both the complexity of…

Using animated computer-generated graphics to assist instruction has recently attracted the attention of educators and educational researchers. The specific focus of this study is to compare the influence of animated visuals with static visuals on college students' understanding of organic reaction mechanisms in chemistry. This study also focuses…

A solid understanding of "inferential statistics" is of major importance for designing and interpreting empirical results in any scientific discipline. However, students are prone to many misconceptions regarding this topic. This article structurally summarizes and describes these misconceptions by presenting a systematic review of publications…

The purpose of this article is to set forth some fundamental guidelines for educators to develop a working relationship with Institutional Review Board members. The authors identify ways to prevent a strained environment from developing so that positive relationships can be established among key players whose role is to ensure that educational…

During the past decade, researchers in special education have begun to investigate the unique and complex challenges encountered by novice special educators. These investigations have documented numerous factors in special education settings that contribute to the stresses of the first year of teaching for them, including: role ambiguity, students…

This paper explores new elementary teachers' instructional representations and how these are related to their science subject matter knowledge. One pair of prospective elementary teachers studied here exhibited a well-integrated, principled, and scientifically accurate understanding of the science they were teaching. The other pair exhibited less…

By not specifying what they will attend to, and by virtue of the relatively extended amount of time they devote to exploring their phenomena, qualitative inquirers have practically no limit to what they can uncover. This is illustrated through data on the role of ethnicity in an ethnically diverse high school. (Author/BJV)

In the past, evaluation of teacher performance often focused on generic behaviors related to common instructional strategies (Medley, Coker, & Soar, 1984). More recently, educational researchers and test developers have focused more on teachers' subject matter knowledge as tested through tools like the Praxis and California's Single Subject…

Provides several reasons for the lack of the classroom teacher's involvement in science education research. Explains the purposes, advantages, involvements, and kinds of research. States that without teachers as researchers, there is an inability to put knowledge to practice. (RT)