Educational Psychology

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more about the full range of students’ skills—not just those of students having difficulties. Sharon can get ideas
about how to help individuals who, in a classroom context, seem especially difficult to help. Achieving these
benefits, of course, comes at a cost: the two teachers may need to take time not only for the students, but also to talk
with each other. Sometimes the time-cost can be reduced somewhat if their school administrators can arrange for a
bit of extra planning and sharing time. But even if this does not happen, the benefits of collaboration will be very
real, and often make the investment of time worthwhile.

Professional associations and professional development activities

Another way to stimulate reflection about teaching is by joining and participating in professional associations—
organizations focused on supporting the work of teachers and on upholding high standards of teaching practice.
Table 45 lists several major professional associations related to education and their Internet addresses. Most of
them are composed of local branches or chapters serving the needs of a particular city, state, or region.

Table 45: A selection of professional associations related to education

• American Association for the Mentally Retarded (AAMR) [www.aamr.org]


• Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, & Dance (AAHPERD) [www.aahperd.org]


• Association for Experiential Education (AEE) [www.princeton.edu/~rcurtis/aee.html]


• Association for Retarded Citizens (ARC) [www.thearc.org/welcome.html]


• ENC Online Resources for Math and Science Education [www.enc.org/stan.htm]


• National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE) [www.nabe.org/]


• National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) [www.naeyc.org/]


• National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) [[www.nctm.org/]


• National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) [www.socialstudies.org/]


• National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) [www.ncte.org]


• National Science Teachers Association [www.nsta.org/]


• Organization of American Historians (OAH) [www.oah.org]

To achieve their purposes, a professional association provides a mixture of publications, meetings, and
conferences intended for the professional development of educators, including classroom teachers. Typically the
publications include either a relatively frequent newsletter or a less frequent journal focused on issues of practice or
research. Very large associations often publish more than one newsletter or journal, each of which is focused on a
particular topic or type of news (for example, the National Education Association in the United States publishes
eight separate periodicals). Some also publish online journals (there are several listed as part of Table 46 or online

Educational Psychology 353 A Global Text