The goals for engaging students in peer learning range from positioning students as knowledgeable others to promoting social-emotional learning goals to providing contexts in which students can articulate and compare their thinking to supporting opportunities to cogenerate solutions to complex problems. There are a number of complexities…

A "threshold concept" is a challenging concept that acts as a doorway leading to deeper understanding and a dramatic shift in perception. A learner that is involved in grasping a threshold concept is said to be undergoing a threshold experience within a "liminal space" or learning environment. We used the blog as a liminal…

Teacher education preparation programs must adapt to changing science education reform movements that identify notebooking as an effective means to increase children's' science process skills and content knowledge. This study addresses the question, "What are the structures and thinking processes that teacher candidates utilize when writing…

This quasi-experimental study examined effects of a 12-week, teacher-delivered, morphologically focused intervention on writing outcomes for fifth-grade U.S. students. In order to help students gain control over the morphologically complex words that typify academic writing, the intervention called students' attention to the morphological…

A staggered A-B design study was used to evaluate the effects of Self- Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) instruction for quick writing in middle school science across four classrooms. A sixth-grade science teacher delivered all students' writing assessment and SRSD instruction for informative quick writing. Results indicated that performance…

Students are using the tools of scientists when keeping a science notebook. They are also keeping track of their thinking and the changes to their original ideas. To bring students' existing ideas out for examination, the author implemented a "quick-write," which entails asking an open-ended question and having the students write all they know in…