There are students whom teachers always seem to remember, primarily because they provide special insight into teaching and learning. These students, most of whom usually have learning difficulties in school, teach important lessons to teachers about determination, survival, and about becoming readers and writers. One such student is Kimberly,…

Noting that the principles of writing process instruction typically offered to elementary teachers are less readily adaptable to intermediate classrooms emphasizing content area learning rather than basic skills, this paper explores two key themes important to the successful implementation of writing process instruction: (1) teachers' needs to…

Intended as a response to the call for reform of education in the United States, this volume presents theories and practical examples school personnel can use in order to bring about change in reading programs. The articles and their authors are as follows: (1) "Characteristics of Exemplary Reading Programs" (S. Jay Samuels); (2)…

Presents the problem of teachers who are unwilling to examine critically their teaching practices, evaluate their efficacy, and make changes where necessary in the face of criticism, and suggests that part of the problem lies in the way teacher educators model teaching styles. (JC)

Suggests that learning comes about by recognizing anomalies, experiencing doubt, and making subsequent changes, and uses a study undertaken in a classroom for learning disabled students to illustrate. (JC)

This document presents the personal narrative of an adult literacy practitioner who has worked with Literacy Volunteers of America and a reading center in Connecticut and who signed up for the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL) Teacher Research Project on Learner Motivation, Retention, and Persistence in 1998.…

This review of the literature discusses contemporary theories and models of action research that are being used by university faculty who are working with administrators and teachers to plan and conduct school-and classroom-based action research projects. The books that are reviewed provide educators with a variety of models for planning and…

The Illinois State Board of Education partnered with two outside groups, the National Computational Science Alliance (NCSA) and the North Central Regional Technology in Education Center (NCRTEC), to provide staff development, along with technological software, hardware, and support, to improve 6th graders' performance in the areas of mathematics,…

This paper positions action research within the wider field of teacher education, raising problematic issues inherent in the process of institutionalizing this form of teacher research. The paper also offers a self-study of the researcher's own practice. It considers teacher education in its broad sense as a continuum of ongoing professional…

Overcoming obstacles to teacher research about their own educational practices requires the formation of intellectual communities of teacher-researchers or networks of teachers. An analytic framework is presented for interpreting and evaluating the work of such groups according to how they use time, talk, construct texts, and interpret teaching…

Describes a long-term, critically oriented teacher-researcher group, noting troublesome issues and the group's attempts to expand teacher-researcher collaboration into daily education settings. The article includes personal narratives by the members, which stress the importance of a self-reflexive stance for collaborative research to accommodate…

Presents five pictures of fifth grade low-achieving students involved in reading-writing activities. Presents two alternatives to current classroom practices for nonmainstream students: prize the culture of nonmainstream students; and view storytelling as another literacy. (MG)

Describes how portfolio use motivated teachers to become researchers in their own practice, synthesizing personal and professional experiences of graduate level student teachers. A three-year followup showed how they became researchers, carrying into their professional lives habits of mind learned from preservice portfolio projects. They continued…

Investigated the impact of Professional Development School (PDS) activities on elementary student writing and mathematics achievement (using collaborative teacher research) after 2 years of school and university researcher participation, describing processes and outcomes of two PDS writing and mathematics skills programs. Focus group interviews…

This article offers an insight into the professional development and learning of an experienced teacher and middle manager in a secondary school stimulated by engaging in an innovative, mixed-mode Master's-level course at the Institute of Education, University of London. At its core is the personal narrative of the teacher as a learner based on a…