This volume is designed to accomplish three primary purposes: (1) illustrate a variety of qualitative methods that researchers have used to study teaching and teacher education; (2) assess the affordances and constraints of these methods and the ways that they focus and shape explorations of teaching; and (3) illuminate representative questions and findings associated with each method described.

The book is organized around three issues that impact research in qualitative paradigms: perspective, methodology, and representation. The first section, "Perspective: Whom Should I Ask?," explores what can be learned by assessing teaching from different perspectives (teachers, teacher educators, students, parents), emphasizing that the perspective of the respondent influences what we can learn and shapes both our questions and our potential findings. The second section "Methodology: How Do I Look?," addresses some of the qualitative research strategies that have been used to study teaching, including historical accounts, photos, drawings, and video. The third section, "Representation: How Do I Show What I Saw?," explores the affordances and constraints of narratives, practical arguments, video ethnography, portfolios, and theater as methods for representing research findings.

Qualitative research paradigms typically do not make claims based in the kinds of foundational criteria for generating knowledge that establish bases for generalizability. The book addresses this dilemma by providing findings, insights, and claims from qualitative research that appear to be useful in settings beyond those that generated the data, and thus inform our thinking about teaching and teachereducation. In addition, its explorations of the affordances and constraints of qualitative research methods provide insightful and occasionally controversial contributions to our thinking about research on teaching and teacher education.

This volume explores the tension between the search for generic principles of good teaching that cut across school subjects and the belief that portrayals of best practices ought to be framed separately for each subject. Its contributors all favor teaching in ways that encourage students to learn each subject with understanding of its big ideas, appreciation of its value, and acquisition of the disposition to apply it in their lives outside of school. They consider curricular, instructional, and assessment aspects of best practices that foster this kind of learning in fourteen school subjects, focusing on instructional methods and learning activities. In the introduction, Editor Jere Brophy presents twelve generic guidelines for good teaching that he believes represent current consensus about best practices that should be applicable to any school subject. Then, leading scholars concerned with curriculum and instruction in particular school subjects (beginning reading, content area reading and literature studies, writing, number, geometry, biology, physics, chemistry, earth science, history, physical geography, cultural studies, citizenship education, and economics) synthesize current thinking about best practices in teaching their respective subjects, commenting on the applicability of generic principles but focusing on subject-special goals and methods. These state-of-the-field contributions take into account not only relatively formal research, but also the wisdom of practice as represented in standards documents, case studies of good teaching, and the methods and activities commonly recommended in subject-specific teacher education texts. The fourteen chapters examine best practices with a much closer lens than more conventional approaches that consider language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies teaching in general but do not focus on the strands that compose these four broad curricular areas. In a final discussion chapter, Brophy draws from these chapters to reassess the applicability of generic guidelines across subjects and to identify commonalities and points of contention in what the authors have to say about instructional materials, content representations, discourse management, learning activities, assessment, technology, and other factors involved in teaching school subjects effectively.

This volume revisits and updates theory and research on self-fulfilling prophecies and other aspects of the effects of teachers' expectations in classrooms. The introductory chapter describes the waxing and waning of a flurry of research on the self-fulfilling prophecy effects of teachers' expectations concerning students' learning potentials, then identifies current aspects of research on this topic that are evident in contemporary work on teacher efficacy, student motivation, gender, student diversity, equity, and many other aspects of contemporary discussions of schooling. Two literature review and synthesis chapters follow, one on teacher expectations and the other on teacher efficacy. Then come six chapters presenting work on expectation-related issues: teachers' efficacy perceptions with respect to difficult-to-teach students, the mutual adaptations that occur between teachers and students as they condition one anothers' expectations and actions, expectation-related phenomena in urban high schools, the teacher's pet phenomenon and other expectation- and attitude-related aspects of teacher-student interaction that affect students' attitudes, students' negative reactions to differential treatment by teachers and the effects of intervention studies designed to maximize the equity and quality of students' educational experiences, and the labeling effects associated with special education diagnoses. The volume concludes with a discussion chapter that synthesizes, critiques, and draws connections across chapters, identifies accomplishments to date, and suggest next steps in extending research on this important topic.

This fourth volume in the series discusses such topics as building a sense of history in a first-grade classroom, teaching for understanding in a third-grade geography lesson, and social studies education in an urban fourth-grade classroom.

This book features contribution from people who have developed and used video in teacher education. The focus is on video as opposed to other technology (e-mail, etc.) and its use in teacher education. The video can be stored on videotapes, CD-Rom, DVD, or computer drives, and it can be used in either preservice or inservice teacher education/professional development programs. Contributors explain the nature of the video they use in their teacher education programs or courses and talk about how they use it, focusing in particular on principles for: making the videos (decisions about how and what to capture on video, the degree to which the teaching should be scripted, whether it should be shown uninterrupted or segmented and edited, and so on), and principles for using the video in the teacher education program (why and how it is used at what points in the program, how viewings are structured and scaffolded by the teacher educator, and so on).

What is the rationale for homework? How can you design meaningful homework, and how can changing homework influence your practice? Homework Done Right: Powerful Learning in Real Life Situations provides answers to these questions and other issues surrounding the hot topic of homework and the impact it can have on both students and teachers. Written in an accessible, practical style, this resource provides a general overview of homework and a brief look at traditional approaches, along with concrete examples of how homework can be made meaningful. The authors take an in-depth look at authentic homework-assignments that are engaging, motivational, and promote real-life applications of knowledge leading to deeper levels of learning. The book is filled with concrete examples across grade levels that demonstrate the process of matching assignments to the goals and major understandings associated with specific course content. The authors invite classroom teachers and building leaders to rethink out-of-school time and reclaim at least part of it as learning time in order to regain spirit and passion for teaching and learning. Readers will find: - Guidance for designing out-of-school assignments that are authentic, meaningful, and tied to real-life experience - Sample homework assignments for various grade levels and subject areas, examples of student work, reflection questions, discussion prompts, protocols, and reproducible forms - Richly-detailed vignettes describing teachers' evolving beliefs and practices around homework.

In clear, concise language, the book deals with fundamental issues that must be addressed if teachers are to construct coherent and powerful history curricula:

-- What are the purposes and goals that different types of teachers establish for their history teaching?

-- What do children know and think about history, and what are the teaching implications for our schools?