In an era of prolific funding for varied small-school models, there is a growing emphasis on schools that alter the landscape of educational design. Some of these models attempt to redesign schools to place students at the center of learning and provide powerful examples of very different ways of thinking about teaching and learning (some examples…

Journal writing is a kind of reflective writing that requires prospective teachers to construct knowledge through questioning their own assumptions about teaching and learning, and hence in line with the general direction of education reform in Hong Kong. This article describes a study that uses response journals as a tool for fostering reflection…

During the past decade, researchers in special education have begun to investigate the unique and complex challenges encountered by novice special educators. These investigations have documented numerous factors in special education settings that contribute to the stresses of the first year of teaching for them, including: role ambiguity, students…

The "No Child Left Behind" legislation requires states to classify schools based on students meeting the state's academic standards. A combination of factors, including scores on state specific tests and nationally normed tests, can result in a school being awarded a low classification or a high classification. In the authors' state,…

Several years ago the authors, a professor from The Netherlands and another professor from the United States, met over coffee and discussions about teacher education at an international conference. With mutual interests in the role of teacher educators' development of their professional identity, the authors developed an intellectual relationship…

The life history method, which achieved a prominent position in the Chicago tradition of sociological research in the early 1920s, has been widely adopted for educational inquiries since the 1980s. The power of the life history method in illuminating subjective teacher experiences in social historical contexts has made it "probably the only…

The present paper asks three questions about pre-service teachers. First, what are the prevalent beliefs about teaching among pre-service teachers? Second, what are the personality characteristics of pre-service teachers? Third, in what ways do personality traits and other demographic attributes predict beliefs about teaching? Participants were…

In this article, the authors explore the ways in which a selection of student teachers from two universities in Canada expressed their feelings of preparedness to teach literacy in elementary classrooms. The student teachers had experienced various approaches to literacy teaching as they progressed through their teacher education program. These…

Many new teachers in urban settings understand that the ways in which they are required to teach stem from local implementation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), entitled "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB). Unfortunately, they find the legislation confusing, the implementations baffling, and the effect on the practicing…

Ongoing educational reform initiatives have ushered in significant changes in teacher-certification regulations. Many states no longer offer permanent certification, but instead require teachers to participate in career-long professional development (PD). Accordingly, increasing attention is being paid to the effectiveness of PD initiatives,…

Professional development is a common and necessary approach to improving teacher quality. However, while teachers are required to participate in professional development activities, it is often the case that they are not involved in selecting and planning those activities, and that professional development may not be closely tied to classroom…

This article attempts to synthesize teachers' conceptions-of-teaching and integrate them into a structure for professional development. It presents one route by which a teacher might become more expert at the practice of teaching. Various conceptions-of-teaching theories are considered in the light of how they impact on the practice of teaching.…

As is recognized by many teacher educators, teacher candidates enter their teacher preparation programs with individual attitudes, views, beliefs, or personal theories of teaching. These views may or may not change, develop, or consolidate as a result of coursework and field experiences throughout the teacher preparation program. Nevertheless, in…

Novice teachers often struggle in their first year. Some succumb to illness, depression, or burnout, and some even decide to abandon teaching as a career option. The classic stressors identified by new teachers have been remarkably consistent over the years, and their challenges have been well chronicled. Less has been written, however, about the…

In this article, the author interprets the phenomenon of teacher research using feminist theories as a heuristic for analysis. She begins with definitions of teacher research. Following, she employs feminist theories to explain teacher research as an emancipatory act. Based on an inductive analysis of the literature, she discusses three arguments:…