Collaborative argumentation has been recognized as a powerful means to facilitate conceptual change of scientific concepts for which students have robust misconceptions. However, eliciting and maintaining collaborative argumentation that yields such productive outcomes is known to be difficult. Specifically, social-motivational antecedents have…

Interest-driven activities, such as mathematical play, can support student agency, motivation, and engagement, and can foster dispositions that reflect authentic disciplinary engagement. However, the bulk of research on mathematical play investigates the mathematics that emerges in young children's natural play or in informal spaces such as video…

Occupational therapy (OT) school is where learning begins as students prepare to become future professionals. Thus, effective course design is imperative in professional formation. This study examined the effectiveness of a course designed around andragogical and active learning principles in combination with Fink's (2013) taxonomy of learning for…

Personalized learning is designed to address the disengagement of today's students and to be proactive in closing the growing achievement gaps occurring in far too many schools. The goal of personalized learning is to engage students in the process, building on their interests, aptitudes, and strengths, thus creating intrinsic motivation for…

"107 Awesome Elementary Teaching Ideas You Can Implement Tomorrow" contains a wide variety of effective, user-friendly strategies, tips, and activities for your elementary school classroom. Rich with anecdotes and examples, this resource features useful suggestions for creating a positive, cooperative classroom culture, improving…

Middle school students have been pervasively described in the research literature as exhibiting disaffection, disengagement, and a lack of interest in mathematics classrooms. This study investigated this notion empirically using students' own voice on their wishes for mathematics learning to see if they characterise themselves in this way in their…

Beyond cognitive outcomes, inquiry instruction can have positive general and differentiated affective outcomes. In this exploratory study, teacher-nominated high- to low-average achievers in Grades 5 through 9 (N = 272, mean age 11.7 years), in classrooms exhibiting rare, occasional, and frequent inquiry qualities, were assessed on…

This paper contains research on the relationship between factors that explain the pupils' perception of music and musical education and their motivation rates to study the subject of music based on motivational explanatory models of cognitive orientation. One hundred and sixteen, sixth-year primary education students belonging to four schools in…

The study of knowledge transfer rarely draws upon motivational constructs in empirical work. We investigated how students' achievement goals interact with different forms of instruction to promote "transfer," defined as preparation for future learning (Bransford & Schwartz, 1999) Students were given either invention or tell-and-practice activities…

Addressing a drawback in current research on computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL), this study investigated the influence of motivation on learning activities and knowledge acquisition during CSCL. Participants' (N = 200 university students) task was to develop a handout for which they had first an individual preparing phase followed by…

In order to be successful in problem-or project-based learning (PBL), students must take responsibility for the learning process by setting goals, monitoring, reflecting, and sustaining their motivation from the beginning of the project until the end. However, for many students, these processes do not occur naturally or easily. Therefore, the…

Research findings on optimum use of the first day of class are mixed. Past data gathered from students from various disciplines support a first day designed to distribute the course syllabus and explain class expectations, rules, and policies. Additional literature supports a different approach to the first day; one designed to immediately engage…

Research indicates that cooperative learning with teacher-guided instruction is more effective in helping young children to learn than cooperative learning with minimal guidance. In the present study, two different cooperative learning activities (jigsaw and drama) and a control condition (a traditional teacher-led approach) were compared. The…

Various motivational frameworks converge to suggest that highlighting the relevance of a learning activity yields benefits for students' learning and performance. Herein, we review a set of studies grounded in self-determination theory's distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic goals, which show that the beneficial effect of a learning…

Today, more than ever before, college educators are being asked to address diversity issues and to teach in ways that foster self-reflexivity and social consciousness. As the world becomes increasingly diverse at the intersections of age, gender, sexual orientation, class, region, religion, race, ethnicity, ability, and nationality, students need…