The Questions to Upgrade and Encourage Student Thinking (QUEST) program is designed to improve student reading comprehension by improving teacher questioning skills. (Author/MLF)

Offers teachers of upper elementary grade students practical guidelines for learning how their students respond to literature and how to use this information in the classroom. (HTH)

Considers the expansion of technology curricula into elementary schools through a discussion of the value of technology studies for young children; critical dimensions of nurturing technological capacity; appropriate teaching, learning, and assessment models; and teacher preparation for teaching about technology. (SK)

Shares the author's minute-by-minute decisions in working with an alienated student whose beliefs about reading created a wall of resistance to learning. Notes the student's beliefs about his learning potential and his lack of strategies were at the root of his reading problems. Concludes that before alienated students can overcome the restrictive…

Explores the participants' perceptions and practices about writing, and ascertains some of the critical influences upon the development of teachers' and children's creative competence in the writing classroom. Seeks to empower teachers to develop their own creative potential in order to enrich children's written voices. (SG)

Co-Ob coaching combines the proven effectiveness of cooperative and observational learning. It involves an intensive observation effort in 6 different classroom settings by a team of from 2 to 25 administrators, supervisors, and coaches seeking to develop or extend their coaching skills. (MLF)

Surveys of seven master elementary teachers examined how they understood their professional development and investigated personal and institutional characteristics that facilitated acquisition of professional expertise. Results suggested the need to offer staff development opportunities that accounted for within-stage differences and between-stage…

Describes how a classroom teacher's experiences as a second-language learner (during a summer institute in Spain) helped her become a better teacher of her bilingual students. (RS)

Discusses what four teachers and their staff developer (each of whom wrote an article for this themed issue of this journal) learned over their two-year journey, a journey in which the goal was to improve their writing workshops. (RS)

Outlines the usefulness of a book club for elementary school teachers and reading supervisors on the topic of the teaching of reading. Discusses choosing topics for discussion, organizing the club, and forming a community of learners. Stresses the importance of reading across the curriculum. Argues that such a reading club can also assist teachers…

First-year teachers experience five phases: anticipation, survival, disillusionment, rejuvenation, and reflection. A Mundelein Illinois mentoring program supports beginning teachers with informal socializing opportunities and information-sharing meetings with district staff and principals. Over a 4-year period, only one of 23 mentored teachers has…

A speech pathologist designed and implemented a practicum study for the purpose of strengthening the conference skills of kindergarten through fifth-grade teachers at three elementary schools. The primary goal of the practicum was to provide the teachers with a method and the skills needed to promote effective cooperation between parent and…

Since 1981 the Teacher Explanation Project has conducted a series of studies to determine whether teachers who provide explicit explanations about how to use reading skills as strategies to low-group readers will be more effective in developing student awareness of how to be strategic and in improving student reading achievement. Because all the…

The evaluation of teachers to see whether they meet state competency standards or should be considered for merit pay is usually limited to making sure they achieve a minimum level of performance and does not involve determining how their performance can be improved if they exhibit higher levels of competence. In Georgia's Fulton County, Mountain…