Education Commons^™

Working-Class Students And Historical Inquiry, Leslie Schuster

Faculty Publications

For the past twelve years, I have been teaching a lower division introductory historical methods course that uses active learning to introduce students to the issues and practices of historical methods, the "how to" of historical inquiry, research and writing. While there are many models for such a course, including the one described by Jeffrey Merrick in the February 2006 issue of this journal, the design of such a course at my institution requires consideration of an often-overlooked dimension. The student body at Rhode Island College (RIC) is primarily working class, mirroring a significant transformation in the traditional college student …

The Dialectics Of Teacher Change Within A Community Of Practice, Armand R. Pires

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

Teacher change is at the heart of school reform. The research on teacher change has been primarily focused on teacher change from an individualistic perspective and has identified three possible paths of teacher change: beliefs precede change, change precedes beliefs, or change is nonlinear and recursive. This study looked at teacher change within a middle school during a time the school was undergoing a district-driven change in student grouping practices.

The study was conducted during the 2009-2010 school year and included ten teachers of science, social studies, and English in a grade 6-8 middle school. A qualitative study approach was …