The charter sector has grown dramatically since its beginnings in Minnesota almost a quarter of a century ago. Today, an estimated 2.5 million children attend approximately 6,400 charter schools across the country, and all but 8 states have charter laws in place. The expansion of the sector has been accompanied by an increase in public commentary…

As a new decade dawns, teachers stand at the center of a policy vortex. They serve as the primary focus of one of the Obama administration's four pillars of educational reform--effective teachers and leaders. Educational reformers of all stripes have focused tremendous energy on thinking of ways to identify effective teachers and in turn recruit,…

How widespread is the use of personal self-disclosure by faculty in the college classroom? Employing a national survey of teaching faculty within liberal arts schools and smaller colleges and universities, the incidence of self-reported faculty self-disclosure was investigated. Teachers (n = 430) provided responses reflecting the content and…

The aim of this study is to understand the influences on chemistry professors' use of educational technology. For this, we use activity theory to focus on two university chemistry professors and the broader activity system in which they work. We analyse their beliefs and past experiences related to teaching, learning, and technology as well as…

Education researchers and policymakers agree that teachers differ in terms of quality and that quality matters for student achievement. Despite prodigious amounts of research, however, debate still persists about the causal relationship between specific teacher credentials and student achievement. In this paper, we use a rich administrative data…

Recommends using informal writing exercises to increase students' involvement in large survey history courses. Explains several activities in which undergraduates collect their thoughts on particular lecture topics. Also suggests that students keep journals to accompany reading assignments. Argues that journal writing enlivens the material and…

This study investigated teacher perception of interactions used in on-line developmental mathematics courses at two-year colleges. A total of 98 AMATYC teachers were surveyed. The following conclusions were inferred from the study's findings: (a) The teacher responding to the survey was apt to be a female between the ages of 50 and 59, had taught…