This research sought to explore the impact upon pre-service teachers' orientations towards the arts of a performing arts week within a one-year postgraduate teacher education programme. There is evidence from a range of data collected before, during and after the week that it had helped to strengthen participants' self-image as artistic…

The purpose of this descriptive study was to explore inservice teachers' definitions of project-based learning (PjBL) and their accounts on the meaning of their PjBL implementations. A purposive sample of six teachers from grades four through twelve in public and private schools participated. Three themes evolved from inductive analysis: (1)…

As knowledge rapidly expands and accumulates, training and assessing students' information searching ability for solving problems on the Internet has become an important and challenging issue. This research aims to improve the web-based problem solving abilities of primary school students by employing an information summarising approach for…

The future implementation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) requires thorough reflection on how to design and develop teacher training courses. In this reflection, it is important to reconsider, among other issues, the role of prospective teachers in their own learning process and the professional competences that they must develop in…

This study investigates the notion of "inspiring" teaching. The research was commissioned by CfBT as part of a collaborative professional development initiative involving its schools. It arose from headteachers' suggestions that schools nominate a number of "inspiring" teachers so that their practice could be studied and the…

As the only federal funding stream that provides dedicated funds for afterschool programs across the country, the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) initiative plays an important role in supporting the innovation that takes place in afterschool programs. Social innovation has been defined as "a novel solution to a social…

The purpose of this article is to share information related to the emergence of mathematics renewal (i.e., enhancing teacher instruction) for struggling learners within an elementary PDS. Specifically, background related to the PDS and three phases of the renewal process are discussed (i.e., identification of needs, implementation of new…

Teachers in complementary schools are often assumed to be using outmoded teaching strategies and an authoritarian approach to discipline. However, it is rare for mainstream teachers to have visited these community-run after-school or weekend classes, which remain on the margins of educational provision. This paper argues that complementary…

To platoon or not to platoon? That's the question facing Irving Hamer, Deputy Superintendent of Academic Operations, Technology and lnnovation for the Memphis City Schools. This year for the first time, the state's achievement test, Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP), will include algebraic concepts on the 5th-grade test. Of the…

Achievement motivation is something that all members of the school community want to support in students, however few may recognize that it is influenced by culture. The very meaning of "achievement" is culturally variable, and the motives that students have for achieving may be quite different, depending upon their cultural background.…

This case study consisted of an examination of the perspectives of students, teachers, and administrators at the Shuangling Primary School, a rural Chinese school in Shaanxi Province, as they relate to themes of China's most recent curricular reform efforts. The intent was to understand these perspectives and determine how to best assist teachers…

The purpose of this study was to inform instruction by using data as a progress-monitoring tool to drive instruction and ultimately student achievement. During the course of this study, data was gathered from a pre-test in a mathematics measurement unit to determine differentiated instruction and grouping. Formative short frequent assessments were…

Introducing creativity to the classroom is a concern for teachers, governments and future employers around the world, and there has been a drive to make experiences at school more exciting, relevant, challenging and dynamic for all young people, ensuring they leave education able to contribute to the global creative economy. "Creative Learning to…

Two grade 5 classes (11-12-year-olds) were introduced through an inquiry-based pedagogy to scientific ideas and concepts within a 3D game-like multi-user virtual environment (MUVE). This article explores how a particular set of strategies and conditions might encourage and sustain the use of the MUVE, Quest Atlantis (QA), as a problem-based…

This research focuses on the adaptation strategies of students from an innovative elementary school run as a community of learners who have been involuntarily "thrown into" competitive, credentialism-based high schools. We apply the anthropologist John Ogbu's comparative historico-ecological framework of "minority" to the innovative school…