Teacher-student interaction in classrooms is perceived to be crucial for learning. Previous research has compared the interaction in classrooms where a second language is used as the medium of instruction (MoI) with those where the mother tongue is used. This has been done mainly via qualitative impressions. The current study adopted a mixed…

There is extensive uptake of ICT in the teaching of science but more evidence is needed on how ICT impacts on the learning practice and the learning outcomes at the classroom level. In this study, a physics website ("Getsmart") was developed using the cognitive apprenticeship framework for students at a high school in Australia. This…

This article describes how using raw data and information from reliable assessments can inform teachers' decisions leading to improved instruction. The primary aim is to use a systems approach to provide evidence of what students know and how they demonstrate mastery. Such evidence can empower teachers to reach all students. The pedagogic…

One of the greatest challenges of an elementary school teacher is equipping students with comprehension strategies that transfer to all content areas. With stable levels of reading achievement over the last two decades in the United States, it is necessary that further research be conducted on methods of increasing students' comprehension…

An experimental field study at a German university was conducted in order to test the effectiveness of an integrated learning environment to improve the acquisition of knowledge about empirical research methods. The integrated learning environment was based on the combination of instruction-oriented and problem-oriented design principles and…

This study explores alternative approaches for teaching general education courses burdened with serving extremely large enrollments. It compares the effectiveness of a self-contained course in which each course section is taught by one instructor to a large lecture/small lab format in which all course enrollees attend one large lecture section and…

The work is based on PISA 2009 International Assessment Study. Two counties were selected: a developed country, Estonia and a developing country, Azerbaijan. The following Datum was used for statistical analysis: students average scores in reading (162 schools, 4 600 students from Azerbaijan; 17 schools, 4 923 students from Estonia). The work is…

Mobile learning has increasingly become interwoven into the fabric of learning and teaching in the United Kingdom higher education sector, and as technological issues become addressed, this phenomena has accelerated. The aim of the study was to examine whether learning using a mobile learning device (Samsung NC10 Netbook) loaded with interactive…

Failure to "activate" relevant, existing background knowledge may be a cause of poor reading comprehension. This failure may cause particular problems with inferences that depend heavily on prior knowledge. Conversely, teaching how to use background knowledge in the context of gap-filling inferences could improve reading comprehension in…

The Web 2.0 brought in the use of social tools at a large scale in every area: a transformation which led to redefining the teaching-learning process. In this new context knowledge is distributed over network connections in an uncontrolled way - thus learning consists of recognizing relevant information patterns and constructing new connections.…

Constructive error handling is considered an important factor for individual learning processes. In a quasi-experimental study with Grades 6 to 9 students, we investigate effects on students' attitudes towards errors as learning opportunities in two conditions: an error-tolerant classroom culture, and the first condition along with additional…

Content analysis has been used to conduct curriculum mapping to map the course objectives, course content, and the assessment tasks of 14 compulsory courses, onto the five Subject Learning Objective (SLO) factors of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction (DC&I) in a teacher education institution in Hong Kong. The results show that the…

Background: Elementary schoolteachers are an important vehicle for teaching students health skills that will carry them through life and reduce their future risk of disease linked to health behaviors. Purpose: To determine whether university classroom instruction resulted in increased self-efficacy and intent to teach a skill-based health…

In this study, a follow-up analysis of the data reported in Lin et al. ("Learn Media Technol." doi: 10.1080/17439884.2011.629660 , 2011), we investigated the relationship between student use of a virtual field trip (VFT) system and the probability of students reporting wanting to visit the national park site upon which the VFT was modeled,…

This study, through multilevel analyses of the data of four English-speaking nations (i.e., Canada, England, New Zealand and the United States) from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2001 database, investigated the relationship between teachers' uses of various types of classroom assessments and their fourth-graders'…