The author argues that the role of a public intellectual involves a science of knowing as well as the knowledge gained by a researcher's work and life. Including both, the intellectual moves beyond educational organizations and finds ways to become more involved not only with larger issues of public policy but also with those with whom he or…

In this article, the author focuses on bridging the gaps among research, innovation, and practice. First, the author reflects on historical perspectives involving the use of research to improve education and serve the public good. Second, the author explores the current climate as reflected by three national reports highlighting future roles of…

As lines between research paradigms continue to blur with the ever-increasing popularity of mixed methods research, there are useful, and occasionally oxymoronic, opportunities for educational researchers to juxtapose tools from opposing methods. The gold standard is just not possible in so much of what we do with small-scale research, nor is it…

The author posits that those going into the education field in contemporary times are no longer overly concerned with traditional discouragements such as low salaries; rather, what appears to be desired today by teachers--both novice and veteran--is the "freedom" to make reasonable curricular and instructional choices, and the "administrative…

In this keynote address, the author shares his reflections on politics, economics, and testing. He focuses on assessment and accountability and begins with some data from large scale written educational testing, "circa 1840". The author argues that people's penchant for accountability and their appetite for standardized testing are, in the…

This article was presented as the 2008 Wallace Foundation Distinguished Lecture at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in New York City. It argues that, to generate robust and generative theories of human learning and development, researchers must address the range of diversity within human cultural communities. The…

In this address, the author engages both with the possibility "and" the impossibility of the educational project--and suggests something of what it means to say this. His presentation is specifically addressed to the theme of the (im)possibility of the educational project. He draws from philosophy, literature, psychoanalysis and history, as well…

In this paper, the author addresses the circumstances of education research knowledge at this time in history. She begins by referring to the keynote talks by Erika McWilliams and Bill Green, who take up the issue of knowledge-building through research in education and how to regard it productively and hopefully as researchers move forward. She…

In this paper, the author aims to share some of the efforts, successes, challenges and lessons learned over approximately two decades of professional development projects both large and small. In retrospect the author contends that efforts toward change, improvement and advancement were always bumping against culture. So, this address attempts to…

In this keynote address, the author aims to encourage students to push the faculty who guide them, in order to bring amazing change to their profession. He urges each of them to work hard to sustain this organization as it moves forward. He discusses the importance of learning, supporting, and affirming diverse histories and communities. He argues…

The focus of this presidential address is on the contemporary treatment of reliability and validity in educational assessment. Highlights on reliability are provided under the classical true-score model using tools from latent trait modeling to clarify important assumptions and procedures for reliability estimation. In addition to reliability,…

In this article, the author revisits the interlinked conceptualizations of globe, of an unconscious, and of the child, which subtly shape repetitively appearing issues that educational research now entails, confronts, and works through. By looking exclusively at institutional structures, educational policy, or classroom-based interactions, the…

Educational researchers and teacher educators are often concerned with immediate and practical questions. How can health teachers help youth avoid substance abuse? Should a high school biology teacher show Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," or is that film too political for a science classroom? What sports should be included in a physical…

A peripatetic is one who journeys hither and thither. Many people can claim that title by just describing a domestic day. In the context of the Mid-Western Educational Research Association (MWERA) conference theme, the globalization of the teacher education experience, the author defines a peripatetic as one who journeys hither and thither…

Data-driven instructional decision making (or D-DIDM) is a "process by which educators examine [data] in order to identify student strengths and deficiencies" (Mertler, 2007). My view of the process of D-DIDM merges three critical educational practices: classroom-based (or site-based) action research, assessment of student learning, and reflective…