Reflective practice serves as a powerful pedagogical strategy for teachers--especially those in low-resource, rural areas. This qualitative case study looked at secondary education pre-service teachers in their first education course. Analysis of focus observation essays data indicated that pre-service teachers were incorporating reflective…

The author reframes the concept of motivation through the observation of a student who is a recent immigrant and seems unmotivated because he is not doing well in his classes. Instead of a lack of motivation by the student, the author finds the system failing to engage the student by enacting four conditions of a motivational framework:…

Before science can be completely understood, one of the fundamental skills that must be developed is observation. Improving descriptive writing and investigating students' observational skills in the classroom is the purpose of this study. The study was designed to determine if such skills, practiced through modeling activities, serve as a way to…

Following the research of Albert Bandura, the advent of social media has changed the platform for social interaction and human experience. Educators have a unique opportunity to apply the concepts of Bandura's Social Learning Theory toward enhanced student engagement and learning in a social media context. This article synthesizes current research…

The present study focuses on the design and evaluation of an innovative instructional approach to developing oral presentation skills. The intervention builds on the observational learning theoretical perspective. This perspective is contrasted with the traditional training and practice approach. Two sequencing approaches--learners starting with…

This study examined the effects of similarity in competence between model and observer on the effectiveness of observational learning in argumentative writing. Results are consistent with the similarity hypothesis: weak learners learn more from focusing their observations on weak models, whereas better learners learn more from focusing on good…

Elementary students can learn to appreciate their own and other cultural backgrounds through a four-stage process of observation. The process involves taking a careful look at home environment, participation in food exchange with classmates, observation at friends' homes and other schools, and followup discussion. (AV)

Labeling students by their behavior is dangerous because, once labels are established, it is difficult to see when they become inappropriate. The article discusses five levels of labeling and suggests that it is more appropriate to describe behavior than to describe people and objects. (SM)