Professional development school partnerships can improve teaching and learning in our schools. To support these partnerships, the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) developed standards for professional development schools. In this article, we address the questions, "What NCATE standards work from the point of…

This is a study of teachers' visions. Five participants were followed through their pre-service years in the teacher education program and into their first year of teaching to see if their vision was sustained and whether it appeared in their practice. This paper describes the coding process for visions and discusses changes that occurred in…

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the attitudes of primary grade teachers and elementary principals about grade retention. Because grade retention is typically initiated in the primary grades, it is important to understand educators' beliefs about it as a viable option for low-performing students. A paper survey was sent to teachers and…

Previous research studies have indicated that some educators do not advocate Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) because of their misunderstanding of the methodology. This article explores the relationship between college-level second language (L2) educators' perceptions and their implementations of CLT. The results of this study show that the…

Cooperating teachers play a vital role in the professional development of student interns. Although they serve as mentors, most cooperating teachers do not receive comprehensive or coordinated preparation for their role as effective mentors. This article presents findings from a qualitative research study exploring the perceptions of nine…

The purpose of this study was to analyze a sample of classroom teachers' definitions of the term "teacher educator" and determine whether they considered themselves to be teacher educators. The extent that classroom teachers' definitions of a teacher educator were influenced by involvement in a university-public school partnership was also…

The purpose of this study was to identify intrinsic and extrinsic variables that influence teacher job satisfaction and retention. A survey was sent to 300 randomly selected Missouri public elementary school teachers in grades K-5 having 5 or more years of teaching experience. The results from 201 respondents suggest that three intrinsic…

The induction of beginning teachers has assumed a burgeoning priority given existing North American preoccupations with teacher retention, state educational standards, and large-scale assessment. In Canada, and especially Ontario, school boards are following the lead of many American institutions in establishing key partnerships with university…

What does it mean to be a professional and to exhibit professionalism? Depending on the context, these concepts may evoke many images and have multiple definitions. In this paper, we examine what it means to be a professional and to exhibit professionalism in the field of education. We go beyond theoretical definitions of teacher professionalism…

What is the nature of classroom teachers' perceptions of their students' home language and literacy experiences? Evolving from a well-documented concern that current understandings about the validity of home and community language and literacies are not widely recognized or utilized in public school classrooms, this article describes a study that…

This study investigated teachers' beliefs and practices of cooperative learning, and strove to determine whether their observed teaching practices reflected their stated beliefs. Findings of the study revealed that teachers understood cooperative learning to mean small groups of students working together to accomplish a particular assignment. The…

Investigated middle school mathematics teachers' reports of the effectiveness of various professional development activities influencing their attention to students' thinking. Teacher surveys indicated that teachers' years of experience, views of learning, and mathematics background correlated with their ratings of various activities. (SM)

Discusses concerns of tenure-track faculty acting as faculty liaisons to Professional Development Schools (PDSs), describing one university's efforts to restructure its roles and rewards policies to support university/public school collaboration. Six conclusions include: the institution's history makes a difference in creating a climate for…

Investigated beginning teachers' beliefs about diversity issues. Interviews with beginning teachers graduated from a program that emphasized the development of critical reflection and moral decision making indicated that the confluence of field experiences in professional development centers, seminar-related discourse, and critical reflection…

Explores two contrasting educational perspectives of high school students with significant disabilities and mental retardation, providing examples from qualitative data on educators' competence- and deficit-oriented perspectives and on students' academic engagement. Competence-oriented teachers believed in and expected more from the students.…