Kenneth Grover, the principal at Innovations Early College High School in Salt Lake City, Utah, describes a student he calls Jessica who is, unfortunately, one of thousands of students across the country entering and walking away from high school during their first year. These students' efforts are sincere, their attendance superb, and their…

Students and teachers predict technology's impact on the future of education. What will classrooms look like in 20 years?

Students know what good teaching looks like--but educators rarely ask them. See what these high school students, who are members of the Future Educators Association[R] and want to be teachers themselves, said. FEA is a part of the PDK family of education associations, which includes Pi Lambda Theta. Get insider advice on good teaching from some…

As a new teacher, the best lesson the author learned from a veteran teacher was to get feedback from students regularly. Unfortunately, many teachers are afraid to ask students what's working and what's not. Perhaps it's because they're alone with kids in a room; perhaps because (especially as new teachers) they don't want to seem weak by asking…

Although schools have always struggled with student failure, retention, and attrition, the turn of the new century has produced added pressures for schools to reduce student dropout rates. In the current political and economic environment, increased costs and reduced budgets are forcing difficult choices in how best to spend limited resources.…

Fostering Healthy Futures (FHF) is a randomized controlled trial of an intervention for preadolescent youth placed in foster care because of maltreatment. As part of the FHF program, graduate students spend sixteen to twenty hours per week mentoring two youths in foster care and receiving intensive training and supervision. During summer and fall…

This paper uses a mixed-methods approach to investigate how the Young Women Leaders Program, a mentoring program for at-risk adolescent girls, supports mentor commitment, prejudice reduction, and increased understanding and acceptance of diversity among the undergraduates serving as mentors. The results suggest that particular mentoring program…

Roosevelt University students in elementary and secondary education, mathematics, and psychology served as mentors to groups of seventh-grade girls in the GO-GIRL Program during two spring semesters. This brief, descriptive essay will address the overall impact of mentoring on student mentors in the GO-GIRL Program, particularly what the…

The role of mentor development in implementing an out-of-school math and science Saturday program for middle-school girls is examined, using content analyses performed on journal entries that four college and graduate school-level mentors completed during the second year of the pilot program. Findings suggest that mentors matured and changed from…

One shortcoming of the academic curriculum is its tendency to emphasize the integrity of the separate subjects and to neglect, even ignore, connections between and among subjects as well as between students' academic experiences and those beyond school. Unfortunately, evidence indicates that recent high school students, who have completed more…

This article describes an action-research project in which the author sought to enact her philosophy of democratic education. A brief discussion of this philosophy along with its pitfalls and promises is followed by details of the author's attempt to co-construct a graduate education course with her students. The article concludes with reflections…

Middle school students are naturally curious about their expanding possibilities. This stage of their lives is a time of transition, of figuring out who they are and where they belong in the world. Many students also think that the world they look at through the classroom window is distant and unconnected to the world of chalkboards and pop…

The society is violent, the urban neighborhoods are violent, and the schools are violent. People who want to teach in urban schools need to recognize the reality of the situation they will enter. Beginning teachers must recognize that preventing violence is an integral part of their legitimate work; the more effective they are at empowering…

For fifteen years, the presenter has engaged college students in discussions and writing assignments that pertain to the outstanding characteristics of their most effective teachers--"effective" meaning that these teachers made the most significant impact on their lives. Based on those recurring themes, the conclusion is that effective teachers…

Principals in the information age need to be information driven, committed to shared leadership and relentless about continuous improvement. They must reshape the processes, norms, and behaviors of teaching and learning around aggregating and interpreting shared information. In this article, the authors discuss the role of a principal in shaping…