This study examines a fifth grade science teacher's attempts at integrating engineering design using the construct of uncertainty. Collaborative action research served as a supportive mechanism to uncover and confront the teacher's uncertainties. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews, reflections, classroom observations, lesson…

The lesson study model of professional development that originated in Japan is becoming increasingly popular in the United States. At its core, lesson study is a means of bringing teachers together to carry out the process of planning a lesson, implementing and observing it, and then examining it during a debriefing session. The debriefing…

Teachers need to develop the ability to adapt curriculum materials. Two elementary teachers, Maggie and Catie, were asked to write narratives about their use of and changes to particular reform-oriented science lesson plans. Maggie drew on her knowledge of and experiences with students, as well as other knowledge, experiences, and resources, to…

The lessons presented in this book will: (1) Help students better understand their own culture and how it has shaped them; (2) Help students begin to understand the perspectives of other cultures, leading to increased respect for those who are different from them--in the classroom and worldwide; and (3) Provide an increased awareness of the value…

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to tiering plus step-by-step instructions for using it in your classroom. Also included are 23 ready-to-apply blackline masters, which provide helpful ideas for activities and classroom management. Contents include: (1) Building the foundation: What is tiering in differentiated instruction?; (2) The…

When planning a lesson, many teachers will start by listing content-based objectives; after all, this is how the majority of textbooks, schemes of work and lesson planning templates are constructed. This is understandable, as for many years now teachers have been legally required to teach the national curriculum which was a list of content-based…

Everyone benefits when teachers share their "best practice" ideas with one another; novice and seasoned teachers alike are delighted to add successful lessons to their repertoire. Besides giving teachers something tried and true to work with, successful lesson plans help teachers reflect upon what makes an approach to language teaching effective…

With today's focus on the importance of lifelong physical activity, educators are increasingly offering a variety of such activities in their classes, as well as in before- and after-school programs. This article describes the benefits of offering ice skating as a challenging and rewarding lifetime activity, either before or after school or in…

The "Testable Question Relay" was created as part of a fourth-grade unit on conducting science experiments. In the relay, student teams raced to "outfit a scientist" by correctly categorizing questions as testable or untestable and earning scientific tools. This activity assists upper-elementary students in recognizing the components of good…

This paper navigates into the "YouTube" website as one of the most usable online tools to learn languages these days. The paper focuses on two issues in creating "YouTube" language learning videos: pedagogy and technology. After observing the existing "YouTube" LLVs, the study presents a novel rubric that is directed…

English language learners (ELLs) are the fastest growing population in the US schools (National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), 2011); these students are consistently outperformed by their White counterparts on the National Assessment of Educational Progress data (NCES, 2011). While traditional English as a second language (ESL) classes…

In the United States, there is a need for pedagogical tools that help teachers develop essential pedagogical content knowledge and practices to meet the mathematical education needs of a growing culturally and linguistically diverse student population. In this article, we introduce an innovative lesson analysis tool that focuses on integrating…

Alison Stephen, who has wrestled for many years with the challenges of teaching emotional and controversial history within a multiethnic school setting, relished the opportunity to link her school's teaching of the Holocaust with a comparative study of other genocides. As she reports, her aim was to not create a hierarchy of suffering or…

There has been an upsurge of interest in teaching second/foreign language (L2) pragmatics in recent years, but much of this effort has been targeted at adult learners. This article introduces small-scale informal instruction exploring the pragmatic development of 9-year-olds in Tokyo, facilitated through dialogic intervention on pragmatics using…

The number of candidates seeking and completing online courses and programs in teacher education continues to increase in order to meet the licensing flexibility demands of adults pursuing teacher certification. Using the theoretical constructs of learner-centered instruction and zones of proximal development, this paper provides an overview of…