Many teachers are turning to online professional development to meet their learning needs, but the vast array of available opportunities may be overwhelming. This article provides a framework for making sense of common online teacher learning opportunities. It also suggests situations where online professional development may be most useful and…

Telling students to study simply because they must or making narrow pitches to a subject's future utility typically fail to generate student interest. Six common mistakes that undermine student motivation can be easily avoided--among them are telling students they need to learn the content now because they will need it when they grow up or…

A program of helping students learn French by integrating students' native tongue into their school instruction, along with French--the country's national language--promises to improve education outcomes in one of the world's poorest nations.

Unbundling is the process of deconstructing established structures and routines and reassembling them in new ways. It can occur as structural unbundling, which concerns the physical structures and delivery systems of schooling, or as content unbundling, which concerns the scope and sequence of what is learned.

New forms of schooling are emerging, driven by new technology, the recession, and public sector innovation, as well as the commitment to attain standards. Three of these new forms are virtual schooling, hybrid schools, and broker schools. While still fairly rare, these schools could become the norm if the regulatory and funding barriers to their…

Many educationally significant, even profound, brain-based discoveries have occurred in recent years, such as that of neurogenesis, the production of new neurons in the human brain. It is highly likely that these discoveries would have been ignored if the education profession hadn't been primed, alerted, and actively monitoring cognitive…

A guide to the underground education publishers and their products. The guide discusses the reasons underground publishers exist and suggests ways in which they have influenced the giants. (Author/DN)

Arguments for the arts in education generally focus on their imaginative, individualistic, and risk-taking characteristics. In this article, the author contends that there are important lessons about intellectual development to be learned by looking at the neglected aspects of the arts, including their formal, controlled, and authoritarian side.…

Argues that it is essential that alternative schools continually ask themselves: What is learning?'' Suggests that such schools must view the way the student values himself and his needs, the way he relates to other people, and the way he operates within the educational institution -- given the variables that will affect what a student learns at…