Surveys parents to discover their perceptions of spelling and spelling instruction. Notes parents see spelling as critically important, want time in school devoted to spelling instruction, want to see a grade in spelling on students' report cards, and see reading and writing as the primary ways in which children learn to spell. Describes effects…

This article describes findings from a classroom-based action research project conducted by two in-school teachers, a literacy coach and a 4th grade teacher, implementing a new integrated literacy and social studies curriculum and the changes they made in curricular practices and beliefs over a three-year period of time. A university professor…

Illustrates Exploratory practice (EP), a form of practitioner research, in action in two classrooms in Brazil. Examines a key mechanism of EP--puzzlement--and presents two different puzzling processes. (VWL)

Examines the puzzlement processes of Exploratory practice (EP) to shed light on the interactive workings of an EP group, and in particular the threats to sustainability that emerged. Reports a discourse analytic inquiry into the nature of the decisions taken and the decision-making process employed at the EP group meetings at a professional…

Examined the consequences for 5 teachers of joining a school/university partnership to inquire into the routines of 13 of their colleagues in the same district. Sought to determine whether studying peers helped teachers conduct inquiries into their own practice and how the teacher-researchers used the findings from the original study to alter…

This paper sets out to show how some theoretical concepts derived from Lacanian psychoanalysis might be put to work in the business of reflective practitioner research in education. It seeks to offer a more sophisticated, reflexively produced account of researcher identity built out of the narrative generated within a research enquiry. It…

This paper reports on a research process that evolved as the researchers considered a study they conducted with kindergarten children, in which the process problematized the research construct of participant/observer. The paper is informed by poststructuralist theory as the participant/observers are observed. According to the paper, a…

Vivian Gussin Paley, teacher-researcher and author of "White Teacher" and "The Girl with the Brown Crayon," discusses her role as teacher, her elimination of the use of teaching guides, her use of tape recorders to collect classroom data, her unique teaching practices that connect children's play and stories with their…

Describes the implementation and evaluation of a constructivist course for science teachers in which teachers are inducted into "critical constructivism" through their own action-research projects. Illustrates the induction process and professional development of one biology teacher of 13- to 15-year olds in Brazil. Contains 23…

Examines the experiences of a group of urban, bilingual teacher-researchers. Considers how teacher research raised teachers' awareness about political dimensions of their own practices and how these teachers took steps to improve their practices and school settings. Proposes that teacher research empowers teachers to think and act like…

Highlights the importance of teacher educators co-constructing knowledge with student teachers within reflective environments, examining co-teaching within a social constructivist framework in one teacher education program. The paper examines four primary roles for teacher educators as more experienced colleagues within a learning community:…

Examined a conversation among high school physics teachers concerning a classroom discussion and teacher-written essays about their first- and second-graders' early reasoning about triangles. The examination sought to: (1) gain insight into the inquiry of teaching; (2) explore similarities and differences between inquiry in teaching and in…

A research study conducted by a classroom teacher explored the question of to what extent increased parent involvement through increased parent-teacher communication will act as a motivating factor for students in a seventh-grade reading classroom and whether this will relate positively to student success in reading. Parents and children took…

Documents a five-year study of two instructors who collaborated on formally studying their teaching of a master's level instructional design course. Outlines their views on learning, teaching, and instructional design (ID), describes the ID course, and explains the reflexive instructional model used, in which the teachers examined their teaching…

The author leads a program that teaches teachers in a public university, most of whom work in struggling urban schools serving students from predominantly poor and minority backgrounds. The courses in her program share a common purpose: to develop understandings about the active nature of children's learning and to use these understandings to…