Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore opportunities to develop higher-order thinking for students in social studies, with a focus on teachers' content coverage and support for engaging in social studies analysis. Design/methodology/approach: A video study using naturalistic classroom observations of 80 social studies lessons was conducted…

Although preservice teachers are familiar with classroom life, they are largely unfamiliar with teachers' intentions and reasoning. Those completing a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) have just one year to acquire new insights into teaching. This article investigates whether their school-based learning can be enhanced by preparing them…

This article looks at the ways in which the semiotics of authority are established and challenged during a secondary school English lesson on "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde". I focus on the utterances of one student and the context of the classroom in which she finds herself as a means to explore the ways in which pedagogic…

Setting tasks plays a key role in geography lessons, as they enable students to engage with the subject content, guide lessons towards predefined learning outcomes, and are therefore important for assessment. At the same time, the use of tasks is complex as numerous aspects regarding the content and the students have to be taken into account.…

Once instructional coach Anne Beaton began creating chances for teachers to get into one another's classrooms to observe and learn about different teaching styles, she realized that not only is studying one another's teaching practices as a community essential in serving students, it also lifts teachers up as leaders. Beaton knew she was learning…

Classroom assessment is an essential part of education. The study investigated teachers' perceptions of classroom assessment and their current classroom assessments practices in secondary science in Bangladesh. Specifically, the study sought to gain an understanding of to what extent teachers use different classroom assessment strategies to…

A non-specialist teacher of mathematics is a school teacher who qualified to teach in a subject other than mathematics yet teaches mathematics to students in secondary school. There is an emerging interest internationally in this population, a brief report of which is given in the paper. Because of concerns about the quality of non-specialists'…

This paper applies Dennis' [(2009). "What does it Mean when an Ethnographer Intervenes?" "Ethnography and Education" 4 (2): 131-146] modes of ethnographic intervention to a fieldwork experience of an observed secondary school lesson in England. Ethnographic research raises numerous ethical dilemmas, in the face of which…

This article directly focuses on insight into the behavioural traits that enhance resilience as a non-cognitive academic skill at secondary school level, and describes a visual resilience toolkit to use with students. The main findings from this case study showed that it was possible to identify a resilience continuum for year 8 (age 12-13),…

Background: Assessment "for" learning (AfL) is now marketed across the Western world as a key to an improved goal attainment in most school subjects. The concept has also attracted increased interest in the international research field of physical education (PE) in recent years. According to (Chan, K., P. J. Hay, and R. Tinning. 2011.…

Students attending alternative provision (AP) schools have typically disengaged with their education. They present with multiple problems and complex support needs which makes their re-engagement back into education challenging. This study examined educational re-engagement using the self-system model of motivational processes. Teacher (or other…

Formative assessment is a classroom practice that has received much attention in recent years for its established potential at increasing student learning. A frequent analytic approach for determining the quality of formative assessment practices is to develop a coding scheme and determine frequencies with which the codes are observed; however,…

This article describes a case study of a gifted high achiever in learning science. This learner was selected on the assumption that drawing attention to the characteristics of a successful learner may improve learning effectiveness of less successful learners. The first author taught the gifted learner and collected data through participant…

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education in the U.S. is in transition. The recently published "A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas" as well as the "Next Generation Science Standards" are responsive to this call and clearly articulate a vision that…

It has been theorized that contextual tasks support student engagement and sense making. Yet, contradictory ideas exist about the role of these tasks in lessons, and further research is needed to explore how classroom interactions can help achieve their intended purposes. Through video observation of lessons in three eighth-grade classrooms using…