Structured conversations

Having structures for conversations are helpful for both students and teachers. www.touchstones.org seems like one structure that has been successfully used. Barry, C. From great text great thinking. Educational Leadership. March 2010.

Non-fiction text can motivate students to be life long readers

The March 2010 issue of Educational Leadership has a very nice article by Gay Ivey on texts that motivate readers, highlighting non-fiction writing.

Teacher Efficacy

Positive teacher self efficacy improves performance.
“Sources of self-efficacy: four professional development formats and their relationship to self-efficacy and implementation of new teaching strategy,” by Megan Tschannen-Moran and Peggy MvMaster. Elementary school journal 110, no 2 (Dec 2009): 228-245.