The role of the principal in the student teaching program

Can a school be improved by the presence of student teachers? It can, says Dr. Briggs, and the principal can make a significant contribution toward this improvement.     

Supervision in Secondary Education

It is widely accepted that including writing activities in the learning process positively impacts student achievement and leads to greater depth of student understanding. This writing is often missing in the math classroom though, when the focus is misplaced on rote procedures. In these classrooms students learn mathematical processes but have little depth of understanding into the mathematical foundations, nor have an ability to clearly express their mathematical reasoning. This article promotes the use of Internet-based chat, forums, and blogs as the environment in which necessary mathematical writing can occur. Zemelman, Daniels, and Hyde provide a best practice framework through which the benefits of chat, forum, and blog writing are obvious. Student engagement with material increases in a cooperative environment, where a real audience and purpose for writing is clear, and student ownership in personal learning grows. In addition, students mature in traditional reading and writing literacy and further develop critical thinking skills.     

Response to Intervention: Following Three Reading Recovery Children on Their Individual Paths to Becoming Literate

Research Findings: In the United States a shift has occurred in how children are identified for long-term special education services. Since 2004, U.S. funding for special education services has included a provision for early intervention services, focusing on the importance of providing supplemental instructional opportunities to students who are not successful in learning from the core classroom instruction. Commonly referred to as response to intervention, this model involves educators monitoring how well students respond to intervention instruction, with referral for special education services for those who make little progress. Practice or Policy: In this article, we propose that intervention instruction should be responsive to the learner as well as focus on how well the learner responds to the intervention. Given that contextual circumstances, including instructional experiences, impact the child's literacy achievement, providing intervention instruction that is contingent upon each child's literacy strengths and needs is the best way to ensure each child's successful response to intervention instruction. As an example of an intervention using responsive instruction, this article describes different instructional approaches provided by Reading Recovery teachers with 3 children who were initially the lowest readers and writers in their classes. All 3 children were able to progress to on-grade-level reading and writing proficiency as a result of the intervention.     

Mentoring Needs of Female,Minority, and International Graduate Students: A content analysis of academic research guides and related print material

A content analysis was conducted of 22 top-selling academic research guides and other print material about writing dissertations and supervising doctoral students to determine the extent to which they identified needs unique to female, minority, and international students and what types of advice were given regarding those needs. Literature review guided construction of the coding protocol. Results indicated that the works examined in this content analysis rarely identified those unique needs. All but two of those that did were published in Great Britain, where institutional and financial pressures have been applied to improving doctoral study. Findings reveal a possible training deficit for faculty as well as for students.