How do we strengthen the teaching profession? This question weighs on many educators, researchers, politicians, and parents. The public discourse around teaching often feels very negative; it does not clearly define teaching expertise, but it does reflect a very clear belief that many teachers just do not have it. In this article, a former…

Research shows that teachers affect student learning more than any other factor. The Educator Effectiveness Research Alliance, a collaborative partnership of educators, policymakers, and researchers, seeks to improve educator quality through research and analytic technical support. Initially focused on Texas, the alliance has expanded to include…

While the benefits of teacher involvement in designing technology enhanced learning are acknowledged in the literature, far less is known about shaping that involvement to yield those benefits. Research is needed to understand how teachers learn through design; how teacher design activities may be supported; and how teacher involvement in design…

Students with disabilities often struggle in science and underperform in this important content area when compared to their typical peers. Unfortunately, many special educators have had little preparation to develop science content knowledge or skills in methods for teaching science. Despite their lack of content knowledge, special educators are…

This study examined the relationship between teacher demographic characteristics (race/ethnicity, age, and gender) and teacher summative performance evaluation ratings in a large urban district over three school years--2012/13-2014/15. In all three years a disproportionately large percentage of Black teachers, teachers age 50 and older, and male…

Today's teachers and administrators are caught in a squeeze of conflicting demands. And evaluation guru Charlotte Danielson fears that teacher evaluation, as it's often implemented today, is making things worse. In schools where teacher evaluation has become simply a matter of numbers, ratings, and rankings, it may be undermining the very…

This special issue recognizes EAPRIL as being a platform for practitioner and practice-based research and by organizing the 10th annual conference for practitioner research on improving learning in education and professional practice. Papers in this conference and in this special issue are rooted in practice-based research or practitioner…

Institutions of higher education are increasingly hiring non-tenure track faculty members (NTTF) to help meet the demands of the institutional teaching mission. Research suggests NTTF experience inadequate working conditions that hinder performance and negatively impact the quality of undergraduate education. Given the growing number of NTTF…

Recent events demonstrate the need for better pedagogical preparation, particularly for online instruction. There has been a sudden burst of professional development nationwide in light of the glaring need. But across higher education more broadly, questions still persist: Isn't teaching more art than science? Will faculty learn about and…

In light of the research on the distinct needs of midcareer faculty and the pressures faced by this group in the academy, we offer here an example of an educational development effort that looks at the renewal of teaching through the lens of renewing the whole person in his/her academic roles. Opportunities for midcareer faculty to focus on…

Self-talk (ST) is a strategy that has been found to change behavior by decreasing interference or distractions to better face challenges related to an impending task. Self-talk is typically a dynamic use of words, phrases or cues that may be positive, negative, instructional or motivational in nature. Physical education teachers and coaches have…

Becoming a better teacher by learning and implementing new ways of teaching requires time, effort, persistence, and a belief that new strategies will enhance student learning. But when educational leaders try to improve teachers and teaching from the outside, by bringing in reformers to transform how teachers engage in the core business of…

In my contribution I give an account of my teaching based on my own memories and those of former students. I rely on reports from my present students, remarks by colleagues and my own reflections. My memories as well as my present reflections are doubtlessly coloured by my growing awareness of the relationships between micro and macro levels of…

An auxiliary and potentially powerful source of practitioners' knowledge, skills, and dispositions can come from participation in research-practice partnerships. Research-practice partnerships link researchers, usually faculty at institutions of higher education, with practitioners working in schools, district central offices, county offices, or…

This article describes learning walks that focus on enhancing student intrinsic motivation and learning at a dual-language pre-K-8 urban public school. Descriptions in this case study are a composite based on the authors' actual experiences as well as ideas from literature and other schools. About once a week at Chicago's Talcott Fine Arts and…