Reading Library and Knowledge Discussion Blog

Author: Vincent, Claudia G. - Horner, Robert H. - Sugai, George Schools are under pressure to create safe, orderly and effective learning environments where students acquire social as well as academic skills that will allow them to succeed in school and beyond. This pressure has emerged from real disciplinary challenges combined with wariness of school violence sensationalized in the media (Lewis & Sugai, 1999; Sugai et al., 2000; Walker, Nishioka, Zeller, Bullis, & Sprague, 2001; Walker & Shinn, 2002). At the same time, teachers, parents, and administrators report more and more time consumed by disciplinary measures intended to correct students' antisocial behaviors (Skiba & Peterson, 2000). Traditional punishment and exclusion may provide a short-lived reprieve from disciplinary problems, but research has shown that in the long term, punishment and exclusion are ineffective and can lead to renewed incidents of disruption and escalating behaviors (Mayer, 1999). Ove...

The last decade has seen a rise in the demand for testing teachers, brought on by a real or perceived decline in student performance, as well as concern over the quality and preparation of people entering the profession. An increased sense of urgency was sounded in recent reports calling for national standards for teachers: the Holmes' Group report, Tomorrow's Teachers (1986); the Carnegie Commission report, A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century (1986); and the National Governors' Association report, Time for Results (1986). In response, many states have adopted formal assessment procedures for teachers, almost all of which claim to evaluate communication abilities. However, the methods of assessment vary from state to state with the result that communication is defined in different ways across the country. Furthermore, the operational definitions found in various state assessment practices often don't correspond with those developed through research. HOW DO ...

Constructivism in Teacher Education: Considerations for Those Who Would Link Practice to Theory. ERIC Digest, Abdal-Haqq, Ismat In recent years, constructivism has received considerable attention in education scholarship, practitioner preparation, and policy formation (MacKinnon & Scarff-Seatter, 1997; Richardson, 1997; Teets & Starnes, 1996). It has been heralded as a more natural, relevant, productive, and empowering framework for instructing both P-12 and teacher education students (Cannella & Reiff, 1994). This Digest identifies major forms of constructivism and considers issues and challenges that surface when implementing constructivist approaches to preservice and inservice teacher education. WHAT IS CONSTRUCTIVISM? Constructivism is an epistemology, a learning or meaning-making theory, that offers an explanation of the nature of knowledge and how human beings learn. It maintains that individuals create or construct their own new understandings or knowledge through...

Author: Mielke, Dan For over 100 years, distance education has served as an alternative method for delivering academic course work to students unable to attend traditional campus-based classes. The format of distance education varies from correspondence-style courses to technologically based courses using the Internet. Distance education offers students considerable benefits, including increased access to learning, lifelong learning opportunities, and convenience of time and place (St. Pierre, 1998). Distance education may be essential for learners who are truly place-bound because of factors such as employment, child-care demands, disability, or remoteness of the location where they live (Rintala, 1998). This digest presents information on the many forms distance education can take and keys to successful teaching with distance education. WHAT IS DISTANCE EDUCATION? Distance education is a method of education in which the learner is physically separated from the teacher and the institu...