This article is a response to the four articles presented in this issue. It considers the need for teacher educators to reimagine structures, practices, and priorities that have dominated the field of education and highlights the ways in which these authors can push our thinking. The work calls us to break down silos, promote interdisciplinary…

As a reviewer of middle level schools, their programs, policies, curricula, mission statements, instructional behaviors, assessment processes, and student-oriented community the author offers observations that can promote better student equity. He suggests: (1) "Producing Equity Belief Statements." Mission, Equity, or Inclusion…

Resulting from the collaboration between five practicing professionals and an LIS faculty member, this article illuminates the experiences of librarians and archivists who engage with LIS students on a continuous basis as guest speakers in LIS classrooms. The phenomenological approach helps to elicit first-hand accounts that encapsulate…

Reflection and Communities of Practice are common constructs in teacher education. Co-teaching is often seen as beneficial, yet teacher education students rarely have experiences being co-taught. Thus, reflection, communities of practice, and co-teaching, deserve careful consideration in designing teacher education learning experiences. Based on…

This article describes a successful experimental collaborative teaching project to deliver a short course to develop work-relevant social literacies in technical students. Heterogeneous work contexts require both students and educators to find ways to integrate thinking and practices across disciplines. Teaching social literacies to information…

This article will seek to utilize Dr. William Allan Kritsonis' book "Ways of Knowing Through the Realms of Meaning" (2007) as a framework to improve a campus's standardized test scores, more specifically, their TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) scores. Many campuses have an improvement plan, also known as a Campus…

This essay explores the challenges facing students and teachers in the interdisciplinary classroom. Based on observations of a team-taught interdisciplinary class and drawing on cultural historical activity theory, I argue that the psychological double binds that result from the clash of different disciplinary activity systems constitute both the…

Wassell and LaVan (this issue) make strong arguments about the value of coteaching as a model for learning to teach. This response paper draws upon recent sociocultural conceptualizations of human nature and development as a process of contribution and shared contribution to extend Wassell and LaVan's findings about teacher learning and to further…

According to the author, the Modern Language Association's (MLA's) recent publication of the reports "Foreign Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World" and "Report to the Teagle Foundation on the Undergraduate Major in Language and Literature" concerning foreign language education has caused many of them to reexamine the…

Wertsch's clarification of Vygotsky's claims about the role of social interaction in the development of children's thinking made an important contribution to educational research. Revisiting that clarification, I suggest that "talk" instead of "speech" best describes Vygotsky's concern with the functional dynamics of dialogue rather than the…

One cannot dispute the value of collaboration. It brings concreteness to concepts for the children and provides a seamless transition to teaching information literacy. The path to student excellence lies in collaboration and flexible scheduling. Although a library media specialist is new to the profession, he or she has likely attended conference…

Within the field of systemic family therapy, the collaborative team is emerging as a powerful training approach as well as a valuable therapeutic tool. This article presents the collaborative team as a method of counselor supervision and training. Issues around the developing team process and potential pitfalls are elaborated. (Author/BL)

Replying to Robert H. Anderson's article in the same "Principal" issue, David Elkind defends his article against classroom rotation. Elkind strongly favors multiage grouping and team teaching, but views the real issue as departmentalization and rotation versus self-contained classrooms. Although multiage grouping and team teaching are…

In this article, the author discusses the professional learning communities and describes how this system helps improve schools and reduce teacher isolation. According to Richard and Rebecca Dufour, the best way to improve schools is for schools to function as professional learning communities. Under this system, teachers work in collaborative…

Suggests a method for teaching research and other media center skills by integrating them in the reading and language arts curriculum with the media specialist and classroom teacher team-planning relevant activities. Advantages and disadvantages of this approach are summarized. (MES)