Students as early as elementary school age are capable of learning the aspects of the nature of science (NOS), and the National Benchmarks incorporate the NOS as part of the learning objectives for K-2 students. Learning more about elementary science instruction can aid in understanding how the NOS can be taught or potentially integrated into…

In order to understand withdrawal rates in online K-12 schools, it is vital to have detailed documentation of these rates and to describe characteristics of the students who withdraw compared to the students who remain enrolled. Once these characteristics are known schools can develop programs and/or policies that support students who are at risk…

In this study, we examined the ways in which teachers' statistical knowledge is enacted during instructional practice. Using classroom video recordings from three middle-grades' teachers, we qualitatively analyzed the conversations around a task designed to develop students' knowledge of statistical sampling. Our analyses showed how teachers'…

When student teachers and cooperating teachers have conversations during the student teaching experience, research indicates that they spend considerable time talking about classroom management. In an effort to focus student teaching on the practice of eliciting, understanding and using student mathematical thinking, we altered the structure of…

The authors offer a new perspective on close reading that uses a range of multimodal texts to capitalize on the visual nature of contemporary society and to support literacy within the academic disciplines. Specifically, a qualitative study explored teachers' perspectives on the use of Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), a practice borrowed from…

This research report uses elements of autoethnography and mixed research to share the efforts of an academic to engage his students during classroom instruction. Participants included 28 science students from a regionally accredited university in Southern Africa, who were taking many sections of a research course. The researcher rearranged…

Social presence is difficult to achieve, but an imperative component of online learning. In this study, we investigated the effect of group size on students' perceptions of social presence in two graduate-level online courses, comparing small group versus whole class discussions. Our results indicated that when in small group discussions, students…

The aim of this article is to foster dialogue between proponents of Alexander's notion of dialogic teaching and those working with educational linguistics--in particular those working with systemic functional theory. To this end, the article begins by highlighting important points of alignment between dialogic teaching and systemic theory: their…

The inclusion of the Knowledge about Language strand in the recently introduced Australian Curriculum: English (AC:E) is both promising and challenging. For the first time, students across primary and secondary years of schooling are expected to develop "a coherent, dynamic, and evolving body of knowledge about the English language and how it…

Racialized multicultural discourses emerge in the TESOL classroom via textbook representations of immigrant success stories and perceived racial and cultural differences among students. Although liberal multicultural discourses may be well intentioned, these discourses warrant closer examination for the ways in which they can essentialize cultural…

This paper addresses potentially problematic classroom episodes in which someone foregrounds a social division that is normally taken for granted. It illustrates the way in which linguistic ethnography can unpack the layered processes that collide in the breaking of silence, showing how linguistic form and practice, individual positioning, local…

This meta-analysis reports on the use of practitioner inquiry (PI) with early program teacher candidates in conjunction with elementary science and math methods courses using cognitive load theory as a theoretical framework. The findings suggest that the teacher candidates enhanced their knowledge of practice within practice across 5 dimensions of…

Enactment of policy on diversity and learning in Australian schools is evident in "diversity talk" in daily discourses of school teachers. From policy documents to daily staffroom conversations, there is extensive use in contemporary Western educational discourse of ethnolinguistic categories. The categorization of students to groups on…

This study describes the use of guided learning activities that exposed aspiring helping professionals to the challenges and discrimination experienced by individuals living in poverty. Pretest/posttest and qualitative analysis of participants' reactions to a Poverty Simulation and a Bridges Out of Poverty Workshop were analyzed to explore…

Many educators and policymakers look to two-way dual language immersion as one of the most promising options to close achievement gaps for English learners. However, the programs' effectiveness depends on the quality of their implementation. This article reports on a large-scale study of the implementation of dual language immersion across a…