Schools in the United States are faced with an increasingly diverse student population and a dramatic increase in the number of English language learners (ELLs) in all grades. As such diverse populations grow in this era of high-stakes testing and accountability, there is increased pressure to make science accessible to all. To help promote…

Revolutions of all kinds are a mainstay of social studies and history classes across Canada. While revolution as subject matter is prevalent in Canadian social studies classrooms, it is unclear the degree to which what Howard Gardner calls the "cognitive revolution" has found its way into those same classrooms. This is the revolution in…

In Singapore, 6-12 year-old students are taught to solve algebra word problems with a mix of arithmetic and pre-algebraic strategies; 13-17 year-olds are typically encouraged to replace these strategies with letter-symbolic algebra. We examined whether algebra problem-solving proficiency amongst beginning learners of letter-symbolic algebra is…

This dissertation presents two studies designed to examine the topic of fraction division in selected Chinese and US curricula. By comparing the structure and content of the Chinese and "Everyday Mathematics" textbooks and teacher's guides, Study 1 revealed many different features presented in the selected curricula. Major differences…

A growing body of research has emphasized the important role that prior knowledge, experience, beliefs and attitudes play in the interpretation of policy reforms. Spillane, Reiser and Reimer (2002) assert that teachers use their prior knowledge in making sense of new directives to change their practice, pointing out how teachers arrive at…

The main purpose of this study was to compare the strategies used by Chinese-speaking students when confronted with familiar versus unfamiliar topics in a multiple-choice format reading comprehension test. The focus was on describing what students do when they are taking reading comprehension tests by asking students to verbalize their thoughts.…

Adult students are more anxious about writing for school, less familiar with academic conventions, and more likely to drop out than younger students. For students learning to move between personal, work, and academic discourse communities, the ongoing and explicit writing instruction argued for in the research of Sternglass, Herrington and Curtis,…

Many teachers are interested in fostering creativity, and there are good reasons for doing so. However, the question of how to do it is made difficult by the paradoxes of creativity: mutually contradictory findings that are, nonetheless, simultaneously true (e.g. convergent thinking hampers creativity but is also necessary for it). These paradoxes…

Since Widodo, Duit and Muller (2002) addressed that there is a gap between teacher's theoretical knowledge and their practical classroom constructivist behavior, we presented a sample teaching activity about Endothermic-Exothermic Reactions for teacher usage. Therein, the aim of this study is to design a 5E model to include students' alternative…

Inquiry is the process by which teachers give students an open-ended question, and then students investigate the evidence and draw conclusions based upon their findings. This method promotes critical thinking, as students cite evidence to support their opinions. Inquiry is most effective when it builds upon students' prior knowledge. To promote…

This dissertation is comprised of two manuscripts that resulted from a single study that tested the efficacy of teaching parents how to infuse comprehension strategy instruction into read alouds with their preschool-aged children. Twenty dyads, each composed of an incoming kindergartener and one of his or her parents, participated in this study.…

The early childhood practicum course is the venue through which college students synthesize prior learning about developmentally appropriate teaching practices and apply it in supervised fieldwork settings. Prior research identifies that while this course has a central place in the preparation of teachers, there are acknowledged gaps of…

The purpose of this mixed method study is to examine what new principals say they learned and the sources of the learning that inform their thoughts and actions as instructional leaders. The research questions proposed for this study emphasize who (new principals), what (their espoused theories and theories in use as instructional leaders based on…

Two experts on education offer a rich and diverse selection of children's literature and teaching strategies for the K-8 mathematics classroom. To date, a vast majority of classrooms continue to fall short in the implementation and direction of NCTM Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (PSSM), in part because most of these classrooms…

Approaching peer review from a process and contextualized perspective, this exploratory case study investigates two Chinese EFL learners' decision-making patterns while evaluating peers' texts in an online peer review and factors influencing these patterns. Detailed qualitative case study data were collected through think-aloud protocols,…