Having students write reflections has been shown to help teachers improve their instruction and students improve their learning outcomes. With the aid of Natural Language Processing (NLP), real-time educational applications that can assess and provide feedback on reflection quality can be deployed. In this work, we first evaluate various NLP…

Extra credit assignments are often viewed with disdain by educators as opportunities to earn points for students that lack the study skills to do well on exams and quizzes. However, these assignments can serve as a platform for students to apply the course material to their own lives, optimizing their strengths and creativity, and encouraging them…

Many college students face numerous academic, social, and economic obstacles that can affect their ability to succeed in their coursework. Expressive writing could be used to help college students overcome these obstacles and make meaning of their experiences to improve their academic lives. With expressive writing, community college students can…

This case study involved a deep reading intervention, creating a way to bridge theories of contemplative practice and mindfulness into classroom practice. Participants were graduate students enrolled in Reading Literacy and Content Methods, a capstone course for teacher licensure before their practicums. The students were led through a deep…

Although we now have a growing number of general suggestions for improving instruction in principal preparation programs as well as studies on particular instructional models, there is a dearth of studies that compare the broad range of traditional and innovative instructional strategies available to professors of educational leadership. Moreover,…

When used effectively, reflective writing tasks can deepen learners' understanding of key concepts, help them critically appraise their developing professional identity, and build qualities for lifelong learning. As such, reflective writing is attracting substantial interest from universities concerned with experiential learning, reflective…

Literature suggests that the mathematical language of teachers impacts a student's understanding of math concepts. When teachers unintentionally use ambiguous language, students' understanding of a subject can be negatively affected. We share background on specific instances in which teachers can create confusion with the language they use, and we…

Researchers suggest that teachers' beliefs about teaching are strongly influenced by their personal experiences with mathematics. This study aimed to explore Pacific Island pre-service secondary mathematics teachers' perceptions about good and bad mathematics teachers. Thirty pre-service teachers, enrolled in a mathematics teaching methods course…

In small-group workshops, a joint initiative of the researcher and the student counsellor, primary (elementary) pre-service teachers (PSTs) wrote about critical incidents in their mathematics learning, and shared them with the group. Then, PSTs read extracts about mathematics anxiety (maths anxiety), and wrote and shared their reflections…

This paper discusses the benefits and challenges of video as a tool for supporting and enhancing peer feedback and reflection. The analysis draws on key arguments from relevant literature in combination with the author's own experiences of producing and using video recordings of peer feedback sessions, presentations and personal reflections, and…

Today Web 2.0 technologies, including blogs, are presenting both teachers and learners with new horizons in the field of language teaching and learning. A blog is an online journal which can be continuously updated by its users (Matheson, 2004). People can write their views at their own pace without space and time constraints. Blogs aid in the…