Blended learning is the instructional practice that involves both face-to-face and online learning in classroom instruction. The problem at a small rural school district in the South Carolina is, despite strong evidence of the benefits and use of blended learning, many classroom teachers at the high school level still fail to consistently…

COVID-19 prompted unprecedented disruptions to schools with challenges particularly severe for high-poverty remote rural schools. This case study recounts the story of a rural school that had participated in a research-practice partnership (RPP) multi-year improvement effort prior to the pandemic and documents the ways the RPP and the school-based…

There are ways for teachers to carry out independent professional development--leading themselves to grow in their understanding and practice of teaching. Two of these are action research and individual development plans. However, to use these models, teachers need connections with teaching colleagues, a mentor, and/or a basic understanding of how…

Communicating effectively is a skill that must be taught and practiced--and the act of listening is a large part of this skill. According to the "International Journal of Listening," listening skills are imperative to reading comprehension and are valuable enough for "38 out of the 51 government entities to include listening skills as part of…

The number of students who speak languages other than English continues to grow in both rural and urban public schools in the United States. Teachers are challenged to accommodate the diverse needs of English language learners (ELLs). This exploratory study investigated the perceptions of eleven teachers from a rural public elementary school in…

In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with kindergarten and first-grade general education teachers to determine their perceptions of student behavior. This study describes the teachers' perspectives of and approaches to behavior management and intervention strategies (e.g., use of praise, rewards, implementation of classroom management,…

This paper reports on the feedback and assessment practices of Canadian grades 4-8 teachers; the data are drawn from a national study of the teaching of writing at the middle grades in all ten Canadian provinces and two (of three) territories. Respondents were 216 grades 4-8 teachers from rural and urban schools. Data sources were audio-recorded…

Educational practices that purposely seek to tie the realities of place to instruction, particularly for the purpose of student engagement, are typically referred to as place-based education. This study investigates how one teacher considered place in making instructional choices for eighth grade English students in a rural high school, and…

This paper investigates the varying attitudes of regular (mainstream) education teachers towards the implementation of inclusion in elementary and secondary school classrooms. This paper tries to take into account the need for a better understanding of teacher attitude towards inclusion and how the inclusive environment can be improved. The…

As English is now promoted as an academic subject in primary and secondary schools in China, creating an enormous demand for qualified English teachers, there is a need to understand English teachers' motivation and commitment to the teaching career. In this paper, the author reports on a biographical study of 12 teachers who taught in schools in…

Results-based management has gained currency in Kenya. After pre-service training, teachers take various staff development programmes to enhance their role effectiveness. Many studies which have associated staff development with employee productivity have not delved into the actual mechanisms in which staff development impact on teachers'…

This paper extracts and elaborates rural secondary teachers' most effective reported motivating strategies. From the data generated by two years of mixed method research in rural secondary schools, these strategies emerged as among the most successful. Selection of best practices was based on a synthesis of what both teachers and students reported…

Teacher professional learning communities provide environments in which teachers engage in regular research and collaboration. They have been found effective as a means for connecting professional learning to the day-to-day realities faced by teachers in the classroom. In this article, the authors draw on survey data collected in primary schools…

Outside its heavily-populated south-eastern corner, Queensland is a huge administrative area with many small, remote communities that can be separated by hundreds of kilometres of dirt road, or, in other areas, not accessible by road. In this study, parents, students and teachers in nine schools from rural and regional Queensland were interviewed…

The purpose of this study was to provide a description of an on-site professional development program for Russian teachers as they learned to teach Sport Education. A concurrent objective was to investigate the effectiveness of this professional development opportunity. Participants were two physical education teachers (one with 27 and one with 3…