This study explored how 26 Chinese EFL teachers perceived community-based, technology-supported professional development practices. The methods of data collection in this study blend quantitative and qualitative techniques: (1) questionnaire survey of teachers' satisfaction about community-based technology-supported professional development…

Purpose: Nondominant youth faces complex structural inequalities and injustices that have a direct impact on their academic learning outcomes and psychosocial well-being. Research suggests that supporting the development of students' critical consciousness not only improves their educational and career trajectories but also provides students with…

A longstanding aim of education efforts to position students as knowledge constructors so they are engaged in the building and shaping their learning environment. Current education reforms situate student sense making around authentic science inquiries where students are engaged in the practices of science. In the science classroom, this means…

In CSCL contexts ("Computer Supported Collaborative Learning") collaborative activities with different levels of structuredeness are often used to foster discussion and exchange among students and enhance collaboration. In this field the debate around whether and to what extent it is useful to structure the activities proposed to students, is…

This exploratory analysis examined the nature of asynchronous, text-based communication in peer-directed educational discussions. The nature of communication changed over time and women exhibited greater tendency for epistolary communication than men. Initial posts, which were expository in nature, focused on disseminating information whereas…

Online discussions enable peer-learning by allowing students to communicate ideas on what they have learned in and beyond the classroom. Peer-learning through online discussions is fostered when online discussions are interactive. Interactivity occurs when students refer to and use perspectives shared by peers, and elaborate, respond to, or…

The aim of this study is to examine difference in the effect of instructional methods (lecture-discussion versus group discussion) and teaching talent on teacher trainees student learning outcomes. It was conducted by a quasi-experimental design using the factorialized (2 x 2) version of the nonequivalent control group design. The subjects were…

A "sense of self-efficacy" is defined as the process of linking knowledge to action, as the assessment of the ability to execute a behavior leading to a certain outcome. A person's perception of self-efficacy has behavioral and emotional implications. When people doubt their own abilities, they tend not to persevere, give up rapidly when…

Lesson study is highly regarded as a model for professional learning, yet remains under-theorised. This article examines the professional learning experiences of teachers and numeracy coaches from three schools in a local network of schools, participating in a lesson study project over two research cycles in 2012. It maps the interconnections…

This research aimed to assess three case studies of in-service science teachers regarding their practices of socio-scientific issue (SSI)-based teaching as they participated in a specially developed professional development (PD) program. Data were collected throughout the PD program from group discussions, observations, interviews, and the review…

Today argumentation is widely emphasized in the policy documents in Europe, and the US. Once we look at the literature in the last two decades, many studies noted students' challenges in this process. On the other side of the coin, we see in-service teachers with problems to support this process. Unfortunately, very few studies focused on this…

Graduate teaching assistants (TAs) are an important group of math instructors whose practice deserves to be supported and studied. In this action research study, I lead a customized regimen of professional development (GQuesT model) for a cohort of first/second-year calculus TAs and study their teaching practice. This study focuses on how the TAs…

This study investigated incidental focus-on-form in a free discussion English as a foreign language (EFL) class with no pre-selected syllabus. Fifteen hours of classroom interactions in an upper-intermediate class with 15 homogeneous adult learners were audio-recorded and analysed. The participants also completed separate uptake sheets for each…

This paper is an investigation into the use of the group oral discussion test (GOT) to detect changes in speaking proficiency over a two-year period. In this test, three or four test-takers discuss a topic for up to 10 minutes without outside intervention. The performance of 53 Japanese university English major students on this test was videoed…

Background: Young people with intellectual disability (ID) are becoming frequent Internet users, but they present difficulties selecting reliable Internet sources. Methods: The present authors tested an instructional programme aimed at increasing skills to evaluate information from the Internet of 33 young adult students with intellectual…