Gamified interactive e-books can make the learning process more interactive, enjoyable, and personalized by incorporating game elements into the educational content, thus increasing student engagement and retention in the flipped classroom. However, scholars have pointed out that learning with game elements that may lead to poor learning outcomes.…

Writing is a complex and difficult skill for many middle-level students. Therefore, teachers must invest considerable time and apply evidence-based instructional approaches when teaching writing. This article describes the self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) approach to teaching writing and provides examples of each step of the approach…

Many primary teachers face challenges in teaching inquiry science, often because they believe that they do not have the content knowledge or pedagogical skills to do so. This is a concern given the emphasis attached to teaching science through inquiry where students do not simply learn about science but also do science. This study reports on the…

Despite the abundance of research in Modeling-based Learning (MbL) in science education, to date there is only limited research on MbL practices among K-6 novice modelers. More specifically, there is no information on how young/novice modelers' modeling enactments look so that researchers and educators have an idea of what should be expected from…

Problem-based learning (PBL) environment is a student-centered instructional method based on the use of ill-structured problems as a stimulus for collaborative learning. This study tried to gain an understanding of teachers' instructional practices and students' responses to such practices in middle school classrooms with PBL environment through…

Over 50 years, two major reform efforts in science education took place. The purpose of the present study is to explore how the educational reforms were reflected in nine 6th grade science textbooks published in 1975, in 1985 and in 1997 in terms of (a) the materials used, (b) the contexts to which the electricity concept was related, (c) the type…

Through the GK-12 program of the National Science Foundation, graduate student fellows in a coastal marine and wetland studies program were trained to present targeted science concepts to middle- and high-school classes through their own research-based lessons. Initially, they were taught to follow the 5-E learning cycle in lesson plan…

The purpose of this study was to examine the association of middle school student science achievement and attitudes about science with student-reported frequency of teacher lecture demonstrations and student-centered learning. The student sample was composed of 602 seventh- and eighth-grade students enrolled in middle school science. Multiple…

Many school districts across North America have turned to a framework for curriculum design and instruction called "Understanding by Design." Included in the framework is a call for teachers to create "essential questions" that provocatively ask students to consider and learn the "big ideas and core processes within the…

Though discussion of the teacher factor in ICT-enabled science learning abounds in the literature, the investigation of Teacher Enactments (TEs) of ICT-facilitated lessons through exploring teaching practices is still under-explored and under-recognized. Current studies are still lacking in evidence-based findings of TEs based on the investigation…

In the past few decades, nonconventional learner-centered (NLC) trends in ELT have emerged amidst the current and probably dominant conventional teacher-centered (CTC) approaches used by majority of private and public schools in the Philippines. With the implementation of the K-12 curriculum, Afro-Asian literature remained the focus of the eighth…

The purpose of this mixed methods study was twofold. First, the study assessed whether Davis' (1989) Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was useful in predicting instructional usage of the interactive whiteboard (IWB), as reported by K-8 teachers. Second, the study set out to understand what motivated those teachers to use the IWB for classroom…

In "Turning Points 2000," Jackson and Davis noted that "changes in middle grades practices have least often occurred where they are needed most: in high-poverty urban and rural communities where unacceptably poor student achievement is rampant". Even so, in many struggling schools, some teams have achieved success. Their…

Educators are simultaneously bombarded with both calls to integrate technology in meaningful ways into their teaching and to promote more student-centered activities which combine both content learning and higher-order thinking. This is no small task given the range of student abilities and interests, the increasing emphasis on state standards and…

Reflective thinking is important to young adolescents as they develop their thinking skills. Various instructional methods have been recommended to support reflective thinking, yet the nature of the underlying factors in these methods is unclear. Exploratory factor analysis was used to determine the factors prompting reflective thinking. Results…