Practitioner research should be sufficiently trustworthy "and" useful. We argue, however, that although criteria of trustworthiness are rather well developed, criteria of usefulness are not. As a result, the long-term impact of practitioner research is rather disappointing because, we contend, it tends to lack practicality. We used…

This paper explores critically the practice of teacher mentoring in Shanghai schools. It begins with a review of the literature on teacher mentoring, which is followed by an introduction to education and teacher mentoring in the schools. The next section critiques teacher mentoring in Shanghai and we highlight three key characteristics and…

This study sought to determine the beliefs that tenured, in-service high school science teachers hold about how their participation in a large mid-Atlantic university's 6-week summer research experiences for teachers (RET) program might influence their pedagogical practices. The findings show a number of factors that teachers believed helped them…

The goal of this research was to understand the various aspects of the action research initiative in the Department of Mathematics and Science, Singapore Polytechnic. A total of 55 lecturers took part in this study and data were collected through semi-structured questionnaires, informal conversations with the lecturers, observations of their…

The present article reports on a case study into the influence and impact of action research carried out by teachers in a special school. The action research was an important component of the two-year, post-initial, in-service course in special educational needs, provided by Fontys University of Applied Sciences, Department of Inclusive and…

This study describes a program designed to improve reading comprehension through the selection, application, and transfer of appropriate reading strategies with both fictional and informational texts. The targeted population consisted of seventh and eighth grade middle school students in a middle-class community in the western suburbs of Chicago,…

The Best Practice Research Scholarship programme (BPRS) was one of a series of initiatives designed by the English Department for Educational Studies (DfES) between 2000 and 2003, to support teachers' continuing professional development. Each year, around 1,000 Scholarships of up to 3,000 British pounds each, were awarded to serving classroom…

The restructuring movement is seen as the best way to reform and revitalize education. Restructuring is making individual schools the focus of change and empowering those closest to students with the responsibility and authority to effect changes responsive to student needs. This publication concentrates on teachers' and principals' roles as the…

This article describes the rationale, development, and first-year implementation of Wisconsin's Preschool Action Research and Development Initiative, a school-university partnership that creates opportunities for researchers and teachers to work collaboratively while examining issues related to early childhood inclusion. Findings on the impact on…

In this article knowledge productivity, a process that creates conceptual artifacts, is used as a way to investigate the outcomes of collaborative and enquiry-oriented activity by teaching professionals. It is an outcome of the motivation to learn (self-regulation) in that it studies the issues from different professional perspectives (reflection…

For seven years, the Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE) was the primary standardized assessment instrument used by the adult education program of the Midwestern Intermediate Unit IV (MIUIV) of the Pennsylvania Department of Education Bureau of Adult Basic and Literacy Education. While reviewing its current assessment procedures, the MIUIV's…

This document (book) reports on the Strategic Alliance to Advance Technological Education through Enhanced Mathematics, Science, Technology, and English Education at the Secondary Level, funded by National Science Foundation. It was a collaborative partnership involving the Rockford Public Schools, Rock Valley College, and Northern Illinois…

This bulletin tells how the boys and girls and staff of the elementary school at Culloden, West Virginia, recently took a critical look at their school program and decided that they ought to do something toward having more useful, interesting, and meaningful learning experiences. Accordingly, they began to develop a curriculum which was different…