This study aims to contribute to the ongoing scholarly conversation about education through the lenses of the German philosophy of "Bildung" and the American philosophy of pragmatism. More concretely, in this article, the two philosophies are represented by the traditions of critical-constructive "Didaktik," based on Wolfgang…

As language programs are endangered in K-16 contexts due to low enrollments, and for budgetary reasons, it is more important than ever to find enduring ways to help promote the study of languages and to make studying languages enjoyable for everyone. For sustainable language education, we need to focus on and promote the true purpose of…

Grade 8 students were given a task that had pairs of shapes that had been transformed (i.e., preimages and images). Students were to identify which of the three rigid transformations--reflections, rotations, or translations--were used to map the preimage to the image. Students were also asked to give a justification for their choice of…

Analyses highlighting the epistemic dimension of students' participation in science have dominated science education literature for the past several years. While most of this literature has focused on how students learn together, the relational nature of these knowledge-building interactions has been under-examined. In response, this paper…

This article focuses on the 2019 National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement (NMSSA) assessment of student ability in writing. It begins with an overview of the study and its results, then turns to students' use of planning strategies to support their writing. Drawing on research on the association between planning and achievement in writing,…

This preliminary study investigated the effects of using picture-based task analyses and an iPad to teach students with intellectual disability how to send and reply to emails. Three middle-school-aged students with intellectual disability as well as three peers without disabilities participated in this investigation. The intervention consisted of…

Classroom discussion is an essential pedagogy for teachers across grade levels and age groups. But what is a discussion, exactly? Are teachers really using discussion when they say they are? Recent research has examined this question and the results are unsettling. Martin Nystrand et al's (2001) massive study of classroom discourse (hereafter…

This study aims to examine how Chinese learners develop in their use and misuse of English modal verbs from Grade 7 to 9. Specifically, it examines form-function connections and explores the factors behind learners' development. The main focus is on the modal verbs "can," "could," "will," "would,"…

This article outlines the arrangement of a text circle in an eighth-grade English language arts class around the novel "To Kill a Mockingbird." The author first provides rationale for examining Atticus Finch as a non-traditional hero for his going against the status quo despite consequence to do what's right. The author then establishes…

We argue for a transformation in the current learning and literacy education of marginalized and nondominant groups of English-as-a-Foreign Language (EFL) refugee learners in Lebanon. This paper describes the process of combining Third Space (TS) and Literature Circles (LC) to develop an instructional model of a transformative pedagogy for…

Providing students with the opportunity to generate new content and share it with a wide audience invites students to compose texts with the care and conviction that cannot be duplicated when writing solely for the teacher. This piece documents one teacher's effort to engage 99 eighth graders with an authentic writing opportunity: the…

In this paper we evaluate the effectiveness of an adaptive online learning platform, designed to support Chinese students in learning the English language. The adaptive platform is studied in three studies, where the experimental platform is compared to an alternate, non-adaptive platform, with random assignment to conditions (the adaptive…

The language of instruction for Deaf children in the American educational system has long been the subject of debate: Should Deaf children learn language via American Sign Language (ASL), English-based visual communication systems, or spoken English only? It has long been the practice of the standard epistemology to encourage the use of verbal…

The 10th anniversary of Common Core's launch offers the opportunity to take stock of the impact these nearly national standards have had on student learning, as well as their future prospects. In this article, Morgan Polikoff shares his view that the standards movement in general, and Common Core in particular, have achieved all they are going to…

Inquiry-based science interventions aim to improve students' science proficiency by helping them understand scientific processes. In these interventions, students conduct hands-on investigations of science concepts and everyday phenomena, construct explanations for what they observe, consider alternative explanations, and communicate and justify…