Background: Inspired by various conceptualizations of both cultural diversity and cross-role partnership, this discussion challenges the assumption that holds sway in many people's minds: Differences primarily divide us. The context for this argument is a program that pairs undergraduate students and faculty members in semester-long…

Background/Context: Educational researchers and policymakers have often lamented the failure of teachers to implement what they consider to be technically sound assessment procedures. In recent years, the belief that teachers are unwilling or unable to implement appropriate assessment procedures has contributed to the rapid expansion of high…

Background/Context: Since the 1970s, researchers have attempted to link observational measures of instructional process to student achievement (and occasionally to other outcomes of schooling). This paper reviews extensively both historical and contemporary research to identify what is known about effective teaching. Purpose/Objective: Good, after…

Background/Context: According to demographers, the number of English language learners (ELLs) in U.S schools has been increasing and is likely to continue to increase in coming years. For various reasons relating to language acquisition, cultural adjustment, and persistent discrimination, these students tend to experience academic difficulties.…

Background/Context: Much progress has been made toward a greater understanding of student engagement and its role in promoting a host of desirable outcomes, including academic outcomes such as higher achievement and reduced dropout, as well as various well-being and life outcomes. Nonetheless, disengagement in our schools is widespread. This may…

Background/Context: Facilitating dialogues about racial issues in higher education classroom settings continues to be a vexing problem facing postsecondary educators. In order for students to discuss race with their peers, they need skilled facilitators who are knowledgeable about racial issues and able to support students in these difficult…

Background/Context: As implementation of the Common Core Literacy Standards moves ahead, teachers, students, and schools are discovering that the standards demand a great deal of them in order to achieve the vision of college, career, and citizenship in the global-digital world outlined in the standards. To accomplish the goals and high…

Background:This brief reflection on the work of the Gordon Commission calls out significant themes and implications found in the various papers authored by the commissioners and other scholars, especially those included in this special issue of Teachers College Record. Purpose: The forward-looking vision of the Gordon Commission is contrasted with…

Background/Context: Founded in 1974 by James Gray and a group of teacher colleagues who came together as the Bay Area Writing Project in California, the National Writing Project is a professional development network that has spread from one site to 197 university-based sites across the U.S. After such a long period of time in operation, it becomes…

Background/Context: The nature of the impact of state-mandated accountability testing on teachers' classroom practices remains contested. While many researchers argue that teachers change their teaching in response to mandated testing, others contend that the nature and degree of the impact of testing on teaching remains unclear. The research…

Background/Context: A fundamental tension has long existed between school reform proposals and actual teaching practice. Despite a large literature on teacher change, the discontinuity between innovation and practice continues and many attempts to reform teaching fail to be enacted in most classrooms. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of…

Background: Since the onset of standards-based reform and its continuation in the form of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and now Race to the Top, debates have continued about whether such policies foster desirable change in states, districts, schools and classrooms. Research Question: The study asks: How do state and district administrators,…

Background: As policymakers and advocates across the United States look to early childhood educators to improve children's cognitive development so they enter elementary school ready to learn, debates have emerged over what types of practices these educators should be engaged in to achieve this goal. Historically, the field of early childhood…

Background/Context: Earlier research on various forms of distance learning concluded that these technologies do not differ significantly from regular classroom instruction in terms of learning outcomes. Now that web-based learning has emerged as a major trend in both K-12 and higher education, the relative efficacy of online and face-to-face…

Background: Although advances in distance learning have shown signs of a reconfiguration of the teacher's role in online environments, a large number of online teaching practices still do not show many signs of this shift. Given the need for a change in pedagogies, investigating how exemplary teachers transfer their thinking, pedagogical…