Objective: This article explores the training and counselling experiences of 20 nurses, aiming to identify key elements in the process of learning and applying motivational interviewing (MI) counselling skills with adherence to protocols. Setting/method: The nurses were recruited from 10 primary health care units in Ostergotland, Sweden. The study…

Of all the possible combinations to produce quality teachers, will the real twosome please stand up? In 2002 the U.S. invested $192 billion (about 50% of the total education budget) in teacher pay and benefits (Rice, 2003). While it is general consensus that the teacher is the most important factor in student achievement, there is little useful…

This article presents the author's response to Joseph Reimer's article titled, "Beyond More Jews Doing Jewish: Clarifying the Goals of Informal Jewish Education." In his article, Reimer laudably seeks to concretize the often ambiguous goals of informal Jewish education. To build his case, he points to the work of Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi to…

Change is hard. Teachers and students live with this reality everyday. Even harder than change is transformation, the kind of change that alters who a person is forever. Yet transformation is exactly what happens in the presence of powerful teaching and learning, especially in English classrooms where everyone uses language to negotiate new…

Siblings of individuals with disabilities are a unique group in disability-related careers. This group of professionals has been minimally explored in research. The researcher utilized qualitative methodology to explore perceptions of siblings with respect to their career and familial experiences in the disability field. Findings indicated that…

Teacher candidates in secondary social studies education come to their methods course eager to share their passion for the subject. Enthusiasm often turns to confusion and frustration when they are confronted with unforeseen decisions about the content they will teach before they determine the instructional strategies for teaching that material.…

Study abroad programs on American college and university campuses are booming, with a national goal of sending abroad one million students within ten years. In this timely and thought-provoking look at the benefits of studying abroad, Joshua S. McKeown moves beyond the acknowledged cultural and linguistic benefits to focus on how it promotes…

This phenomenological study investigates conceptions of statistical variation that secondary mathematics teachers who are recognized leaders in AP Statistics exhibit. This study also investigates perceptions and recollections of activities and actions that teachers who exhibited robust understandings of variation suggest contributed to their…

Chinese supplementary schools have been accused of having "old-fashioned" and ineffective teaching methods, with most teaching being undertaken by "unqualified" volunteer parent teachers. But how do pupils themselves interpret and experience the complementary school setting and to what extent do they feel it affects their…

Background: Chemistry students often complain that they are unmotivated because they see no applications of chemical principles in "real life." It was thus decided to put into use the knowledge gained during the course on water quality and analysis. Learning the principles of quantitative chemical analysis requires innovative, hands-on…

The author examined the practice of transformative pedagogy in an undergraduate teacher education program. The research was guided by two questions: What is the impact of transformative pedagogy on fostering preservice teachers' transformative learning? and What practices of transformative pedagogy impact student transformative learning?…

This article describes a conceptual framework developed to illuminate how prospective teachers' learning experiences are shaped by didactic-sensitive activities in departments of mathematics. We draw from the experiences of prospective teachers in the Department of Mathematics at our institution in designing, implementing (i.e. computer…

Understanding environmental learning is the first step to constructing successful environmental education programs. Little research has addressed the relation between the environmental knowledge learned inside and outside schools. Environmental educators and ethnobiologists have worked independently, without assessing how school and local…

Many have argued that interactive 3D virtual environments have great educational potential due to their ability to engage learners in the exploration, construction and manipulation of virtual objects, structures and metaphorical representations of ideas. Although learning benefits have been demonstrated in research settings, and substantial usage…

This study investigated the viability of learning to play an improvised 12-bar blues on keyboard with both hands together in an asynchronous e-learning environment. The study also sought to reveal participant approaches to and reflections on this learning experience. Participants were video-taped as they engaged with six "Blues…