Word Generation (WG) is a research-based vocabulary program for middle school students designed to teach words through language arts, math, science, and social studies classes. The program consists of weekly units that introduce 5 high-utility target words through brief passages designed to spark active examination and discussion of contemporary…

This qualitative study examined the question: How can arts-based approaches facilitate transformative learning in a student teaching seminar? Two teacher educators facilitated a supplemental and voluntary arts-based ST seminar that comprised six, two-hour sessions. Thirty-four student teachers participated over five semesters making use of Theater…

"'Do You Want Paper or Plastic?' An Inquiry into Single-Use Grocery Bags" is an inquiry-based, solutions-focused environmental education unit developed for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. Field-tested in two U.S. southeastern regions, the unit engages students as informed change makers who investigate the production, consumption, and disposal…

This study provides qualitative and quantitative evidence of how an emotion explanation task can reflect African American preschoolers' pragmatic skills. We used an emotion explanation task to assess pragmatic skills among 19 children (aged 3-5 years) related to (1) engaging in conversational turn-taking, (2) answering "Wh-" questions,…

James is 14 years old. Tall, handsome, funny, athletic, attuned to others, he is one of the popular, high-status students in his large freshman class. He can also be remarkably caring and attentive with his close friends. But James has a dark side. Sometimes he uses his social skills to manipulate others, and he draws a bright line between those…

Historical reasoning competencies play an important role in history education. However, valid and reliable large-scale measurement instruments to assess these competencies are scarce. This study considers two instruments for measuring students' ability to perform historical perspective taking (HPT) as a historical reasoning competency. The…

Preparing students to become effective citizens in an increasingly interdependent world is one of today's most critical challenges. Effective global citizens need to be able to do more than imagine themselves in another's position, a common definition of perspective-taking. To bridge current divides of culture, religion, and nationality, they also…

In 2011, the Finnish National Board of Education assessed the learning outcomes of history with a study whose results raised doubts about the fulfilment of the goals of history education. This article seeks to expand awareness about Finnish adolescents' understanding of historical empathy. The study assessed twenty-two 16-17-year-old high school…

Readers differentially adopt an agent's perspective as a function of pronouns encountered during reading. The present study assessed the reliability of this effect across narrative contexts and self-reported variation in levels of engagement during reading. Experiment 1 used an extended sample (N = 263) and replicated an interactive influence of…

The principle of dialogue is the innovative teaching and learning practices with a transformative agenda. This paper argues that through dialogue lecturers can stimulate students to think and argue for themselves, rather than defer to tradition and authority. However, the context that is conducive for dialogic education, especially in a country…

Young children struggle in the classic tests of appearance versus reality. In the current Study 1, 3-year-olds had to determine which of 2 objects (a deceptive or a nondeceptive one) an adult requested when asking for the "real X" versus "the one that looks like X." In Study 2, children of the same age had to indicate what a single deceptive…

Students' opportunities to learn how to think are embedded in the instructional tasks with which they are invited to engage in the classroom. Prior research has revealed that the selection and use of cognitively demanding tasks does not guarantee high-level student thinking during their enactment. To address this challenge, we designed and…

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of a social stories intervention on the social skills of male students with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). The sample included 30 male students with ASD who were selected through convenience sampling and randomly assigned to an experimental group (n = 15) or a control group (n = 15). The social…

This special issue of the Journal of Research in Science Teaching seeks to explore conceptualizations of culture that address contemporary challenges in science education. Toward this end, we unite two theoretical perspectives to advance a conceptualization of culture as a complex system, emerging from iterative processes of cultural bricolage,…

Existing reading comprehension assessments have been criticized by researchers, educators, and policy makers, especially regarding their coverage, utility, and authenticity. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate a new assessment of reading comprehension that was designed to broaden the construct of reading. In light of these issues, we…