In-service teacher education in China has traditionally been mainly lecture-centred, theory-orientated, and experience-led. For various contemporary reasons such an approach may not be effective since it is unlikely to provide a context in which teachers are able to put educational theories into practice. "Action Education", a…

Active learning promotes higher-level reasoning, and it can be achieved in large classes without wholesale changes in class format. Applicable methods include in-class mini-investigations, robust multiple-choice exam questions, online quizzes or review, and cooperative learning, particularly during exams. Data gleaned from observing student…

We make the case for an emergent notion of authenticity of science based on systems theory and neo-Piagetian thought. We propose that authentic science is an emergent property of a dynamic system of learning precipitated by the interactions among students, teachers, and scientists that occur within the contexts defined by the internal and external…

Although they are a useful resource, textbooks provide students with only a terse account of facts and concepts. In contrast, historical literature allows students to experience a humanistic and detailed view of historical figures and important events. Historical fiction and nonfiction give children the opportunity to explore alternative…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the cooperative learning approach based on conceptual change conditions over traditional instruction on 10th grade students' conceptual understanding and achievement of computational problems related to chemical equilibrium concepts. The subjects of this study consisted of 87 tenth grade…

Self-managed learning groups are regularly used in higher education. However, there is little direct evidence as to strategies that can enhance their efficacy, or the factors that influence students' engagement with the process of self-management. If students are expected to manage their out-of-class collaborative learning experiences, then…

In this article, the author relates how an experience in 4th grade impacted his future career and aspirations. He emphasizes the relevance of learning, at an early age, good writing and speaking skills, the ability to ask the right questions, and the importance of learning from each other. He contends that learning from each other is a very…

A clear and consistent finding of educational research has been the importance of active student responding. During lectures and discussions, active responding most often takes the form of student responses to teacher questions. This whole group responding to questions, however, does not permit every student to respond and does not assure that all…

We examined what events cause emotional reactions when students use a web-based learning environment (WBLE) in their studies, and how the emotions experienced while using the WBLE, emotion regulation strategies and computer self-efficacy are related to collaborative activities in the environment. Lability of emotional reactions and their…

The author of this paper, a primary educator at Jack Jackter Elementary School in Colchester, Connecticut, describes several activities teachers can use to enhance character development lessons and help put children on track for becoming problem-solving citizens both in school and in society.

This paper presents the results of a study on the influence of blackboard assistance and lecturer's initiative on student's achievements (measured via quality of individualised surfboards). In addition it looks at student attitudes to project related issues in technology education, derived from the pre-test and post-test experiments and surveys.…

Focused freewriting, broadly defined as writing without stopping and editing about a specific topic, has been viewed and used as a powerful tool for developing student writing in a wide spectrum of educational contexts. This study aimed to further explore the use of focused freewriting in the context of promoting students' academic skills…

Instructors at universities face many of the same concerns. They have to prepare and organize their courses, teach those courses and provide assignments, assess the learning of the students, and then evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching style. Even though these experiences are common, learning environments in higher education are…

Varied academic ability is a problem across the country and is the focus of this action research project report. The four teacher researchers were searching for way to reach all learners with their mathematics instruction. The purpose of the research was to increase mathematical performance in a varied ability math classroom. To address varied…

This article analyses the relationship between the face-to-face and the online components of a blended course in Educational Technology, run by the Institute for Educational Technology for the local Postgraduate School for Secondary Teaching. The course designers developed criteria for harmonising and integrating the two educational modalities,…