This article describes a four-year project undertaken to develop a set of performance tasks that could be used for assessing hands-on science in Irish primary schools. It begins by considering some of the literature on performance assessment and concludes with a discussion on the potential of the tasks to support teaching and learning in science.…

The treatment of errors in mathematics classrooms has gained attention in recent years, with many researchers suggesting that errors should be used as starting points for student inquiry into mathematics. In the study reported in this article, we examined how teachers used discourse around errors to generate inquiry by looking at the treatment of…

Examination of prospective teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning on entry to teacher education programs, and tracking the development of these beliefs in light of academic and field-based experiences, is a critical task for teacher educators. The study examines metaphor construction as a tool to gain access to, and promote the development…

One important aspect of teacher effectiveness, of course, is formal knowledge of one or more academic disciplines. But another aspect of teacher effectiveness may be informal, or tacit knowledge of how to handle challenging situations, or even crises, that arise in the classroom. Tacit knowledge is what a person needs to know to succeed in an…

It is common for teachers in all districts across the United States to give homework to their students. Given the rising numbers of children from nondominant backgrounds in American schools, a question that merits consideration is how children from nondominant backgrounds--particularly in large urban centers--are impacted by teachers' homework…

This issue of CPRE Policy Briefs summarizes the findings on issues related to teacher quality in the chapter by the author in the book, "The State of Education Policy Research" (Cohen, Fuhrman, Mosher, Eds., 2007). This report also draws on discussions that took place during a summer, 2006, policy briefing on teacher labor-market issues…

This study used an analysis of variance (ANOVA)-like approach to predict reading proficiency with student, teacher, and school-level predictors based on a 3-level hierarchical generalized linear model (HGLM) analysis. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2000 reading data for 4th graders sampled from 46 states of the United States of…

Usiskin takes another look at fractions, years after writing the article "The Future of Fractions" for "Arithmetic Teacher".

Elementary teachers' beliefs, knowledge, and practice relating to retention were explored using an adapted version of the Teacher Retention Beliefs Questionnaire (Tompchin & Impara, 1992). A researcher-developed knowledge section was added to the original questionnaire to measure teachers' propositional knowledge of retention. Thirty-five, K-4…

The study investigated the relationship between mathematics anxiety and mathematics teacher efficacy among elementary preservice teachers. Participants included 28 elementary preservice teachers at a mid-size university in the southeastern United States who had just completed a mathematics methods course. Data sources included the Mathematics…

This article is a glimpse into one primary classroom at a French school. The author, a kindergarten and first-grade teacher from Connecticut, visits a primary classroom for children ages five to eight years in a French village. She shares her reflections, based on observation, research, and interviews, of how a different culture approaches…

This exploratory study sought to examine the perceptions of pre-service elementary school teachers about the purpose of schooling. Eighty students in a junior-level elementary education course at a medium-sized university in the southeastern United States were given a questionnaire to complete, asking for their perspectives on the priority of…

The number of students taking online courses in K-12 has increased exponentially since the inception of virtual schools in 1996. However, K-12 virtual schooling is a relatively new concept for those involved in teacher education. As teacher education departments build pre-service preparation programs, in-service professional development…

Public school art education in the United States has been around for over 125 years. Professional art education associations of one kind or another have been with us for at least 100 years. The National Art Education Association has provided information and support to art teachers for many decades, but the truth is that most public school art…

A multi-stage mixed analysis was used to examine stories from 423, primarily Hispanic, undergraduate students in the United States regarding their best and poorest K-12 teachers, along with responses to 10 Likert format survey items. In the quantitative analysis phase, participants expressed strong agreement with items derived from the literature…