In this book, the author provides teachers with detailed strategies and lesson plans, along with real student writing samples. He describes effective routines of formative self-assessment, and shows teachers how to form a professional learning team with their colleagues using the 6-session professional learning guide. Contents include: (1)…

Teachers' conceptions of assessment are important as they shape their usage of assessment practices. This study used a phenomenographic approach to examine the various purposes a sample of 26 New Zealand teachers ascribed to assessment. Seven purposes were discussed: compliance, external reporting, reporting to parents, extrinsically motivating…

The teacher educator is always also a teacher, and as a role model may have an important impact on student teachers' views on teaching. However, what is the impact of these teacher educator's own role models on their teaching views and practices? Do teacher educators simply imitate the positive role models and reject the bad? It is already clear…

Research demonstrates that authentic instruction is an effective form of teaching and raising student achievement. The purpose of this study was to examine high school math or science teachers who had a high interest in using authentic instruction in three different school settings--an alternative school, a charter school, and a traditional…

In order to examine the relationship between reported levels of teacher self-efficacy, collective efficacy, and job satisfaction in special educators, teachers in one school district completed three surveys measuring these constructs. The results indicated that teacher self-efficacy had a direct effect on job satisfaction. It was further found…

Teens with disabilities need information about risk topics such as addiction, abuse, sex, and delinquency to make healthy choices as they participate in mainstream society. This article presents questionnaire-based information provided by special educators in secondary schools about their efforts, limitations, and needs in providing risk reduction…

Case studies of Authentic Intellectual Work (AIW) in the Iowa project included four high schools that have been practicing this professional development model for the last five years. The schools, AHST Secondary School, Cedar Falls High School, Spencer High and Middle Schools and Valley High School were visited in April, 2011. The visits included…

Over the past decade many social studies educators have called for teachers to engage their students in historical interpretation. This case study examined the beliefs and practices related to engaging students in historical interpretation of four secondary social studies teachers from their teacher preparation through their first year in the…

In recent years, the response to intervention (RTI) model has not only gained popularity as an alternate approach to identifying students with learning disabilities but also offered general education teachers a framework for problem solving at the classroom level. The model emphasizes ongoing progress monitoring of student performance to make…

This article shows how a matrix can be used to represent a food chain and how the square of this matrix represents the indirect food sources for each animal in the chain. By exploring, through mathematics, the implications when the bottom of the food chain is destroyed, students will see an important connection between mathematics and science.…

Drawing on the rich line of research that has emerged over the past 15 years, this article details the types of support necessary for the establishment and nurturing of teacher collaborative inquiry. Although teachers have the ability and drive to initiate change, it is often the case that complex layers of support are required to achieve this…

The author examines the use of constructivist teaching practices by four new secondary school science teachers (NSTs) from a preparation program with a focus on constructivism. Data of the NSTs is compared to data of secondary school teachers from two different sources: (i) new teachers (NTs) from a broad-scale nationally-funded project involving…

This article deals with the forms and contents of self-initiated art works: the kind of learning that takes place in the production of self-initiated art works as well as the relationships with school art. We interviewed 52 Dutch students (aged between 10 and 14) from different schools of primary and secondary education, and their art teachers.…

In this paper we present a schematic overview of the central concepts in evolutionary theory, setting them off against the background of widespread misconceptions about them. Our aim is to provide high school teachers with (1) an overview of those particular concepts that they can expect students to have difficulties with, (2) a comparison of…

The current rapid decline of Earth's biodiversity represents an enormous crisis for humanity. Among the factors producing declines in biodiversity, changes in land use may have the greatest effect in the near term. It is well known that land-use history produces strong, lingering effects on biodiversity. This phenomenon has become known as the…