The purpose of this study was to determine how placement, professional development, and the years of experience of special education teachers impacted the standardized test scores of special education students. This was done by comparing the type of placement of students, mainstream (80+% of the day), co-teaching, separate classroom (100%) and…

The Scientist in the Classroom Partnership (SCP) is a unique program that partners scientists-in-training with classroom teachers to co-teach one day per week in elementary and middle schools. This program has shown positive impacts on all participants, and has the potential to promote professional learning for both the scientists and teachers.…

The development of education to improve poverty in the region has become an essential direction of the world's poverty alleviation work. In the poverty alleviation by education work in China, educators who are on the front line of poverty are determined by education and nurturing their wisdom, leading countless children from families out of…

Teacher educators' capacity to prepare competent P-12 educators who are ready to meet the challenges of 21st century schooling has been called into question (Darling-Hammond, 2006). Low student achievement and high teacher attrition rates have resulted in a national call to prepare prospective and practicing teachers with the knowledge, skills,…

"RTI in Middle School Classrooms" provides practical, research-based instructional techniques and interventions--geared especially to middle school teachers and administrators--that target and address specific needs of individual students. Response to intervention allows educators to assess and meet the needs of struggling students…

Researchers have found that middle school students undergo developmental changes that require unique educational structures and support. As a result, experts have suggested a number of specific strategies for organizing middle schools in order to best meet students' needs. This Information Capsule summarizes middle school redesign initiatives that…

The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics will place more pressure on special education and math teachers to raise the skill levels of all students, especially those with disabilities in math (MD). The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of enhanced anchored instruction (EAI) on students with and without MD in co-taught general…

This paper describes and interprets the case of a middle school's first year of using interdisciplinary teacher teams as a key among several restructuring moves. It describes: (1) characteristics of the teaming process--leadership, decision making, professional growth and support of individual teachers, and cooperation, competition, and conflict…

In searching for avenues to create a collaborative school environment in which autonomous teachers impact the outcomes of schooling and students become independent learners, there is increasing interest in "self-managing work groups." This paper presents findings of a study that examined the role of the principal in the development of…

Schools across the United States are creating teacher teams in ever-greater numbers. "Teaming" refers to assembling a group of teachers from different disciplines and/or grade levels who work together as a "core group" responsible for teaching a subset of the school's population. This brief examines some of the potential conflicts between teacher…

An eight-chapter manual describes how to involve school faculty in the development of effective middle schools. The author identifies the components of effective middle school programs and suggests processes for implementing the programs using group and staff development techniques. Chapter 1 discusses staff development programs to train teachers…

This paper explores the concept of combining collaborative action research, used in examining teacher behaviors, with group dynamics, used to facilitate new ideas and increase motivation. Specifically, the study examines the effort by one team of middle school teachers to conduct teacher team collaborative research. After reviewing the literature…

Discusses how co-teaching is useful for teaching important aspects of teaching to preservice educators, presenting an episode of masterful questioning from a study about teaching and learning in a science classroom co-taught by an experienced science teacher and a preservice teacher completing an internship. Their work suggests that preservice…

The Practitioner Center, an innovation which provides a vehicle for a transactional approach to teacher growth and professional development, incorporates the concept of peer leadership with "teachers teaching teachers" and teachers acting as coaches. The organizers of the practitioner center decided on a 5-part format which is covered in…