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…

This study assesses the level of inclusion of multicultural education materials and activities in kindergarten classrooms in the State of Florida. The researcher developed a two-part questionnaire which was mailed to one thousand kindergarten teachers selected by systematic sampling. Part one of the questionnaire contained seventy-eight items…

The purpose of this investigation was to determine if there was a difference in the development of effective urban teacher characteristics between student interns placed in either an urban Professional Development School environment or an urban non-Professional Development School environment. Student interns in urban universities with partnerships…

Professional Development Schools provide many different opportunities for the supervision of pre-service teacher. One of these options is the Shared Supervision of student teachers in which the university faculty member and the supervising classroom teacher now work together to complete observations, provide feedback, and complete summative…

Members of Auburn University's educational leadership program at the doctoral level have created a new framework for learning and sharing knowledge, experience, and support. This framework is shared among the doctoral candidates in the form of series of core classes called "doctoral cohort." This paper captures the essence of the educational…

The time, effort, and frustration spent in the publication arena is documented as one of most difficult challenges faced by practitioners moving into the higher education arena. Yet, consistently there is an outcry for expertise from field to enter college and university classrooms. The dilemma, then, rests on how to attract experts from the field…

This article presents a faculty-designed merit pay plan along with a discussion of some of its perceived values. The merit pay plan discussed here advocates that (1) there is a need among teacher education faculty to have control over the design and implementation of any merit pay process that evaluates and rewards the value-laden work they…

Three WISC-III protocols and a questionnaire were sent to individuals representative of varying levels and fields of education and who held different professional positions for scoring. Data analyses of the 126 sets of protocols revealed that the Comprehension, Vocabulary, and Similarities subtests were scored incorrectly most often. Analyses also…

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…

Much has been written about how K-12 teachers and university faculty come to understand their roles within Professional Development Schools (PDSs). However, there is not a clear body of research that addresses the role of graduate students who represent a valuable force in PDSs. This paper aims to explore the dynamics of relationship building in a…

The study examined the internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the Student Literacy Attitude Inventory (SLAI) scores. A total of 367 students in grades four, five, and six responded to the SLAI. The data were analyzed by gender, ethnicity, and grade level for each of the SLAI subareas (Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, and…

In an era of increasing accountability demands for teachers and students professional development will be the key to success in school reform initiatives as administrators struggle with improving the current teaching force. Research has shown that teacher efficacy is an important variable in teacher effectiveness that is consistently related to…

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…

This study investigated the cognitions of a teacher and four adolescent students during their involvement in critical thinking (CT) activities. Content analysis yielded a multi-dimensional construct of teacher, student, and teacher/student thought patterns. The teacher created a supportive learning environment, provided activities that maximized…

The innovative CLASS professional development school initiative seeks to redesign teacher education through effective collaboration to better meet the needs of a changing pre-service student population. Non-traditional, often part-time students are entering undergraduate pre-service education programs across North America and in other parts of the…