This study builds on recent research into young children's pretend play. Social literacy practices and events in which children engaged were investigated to reveal features of their meaning making. Drawing on Vygotsky's view of the social nature of symbol use and writing, it stresses the significance of cultural and social features of meanings and…

Learning science in the middle years can be an emotional experience. In this study, we explored ninth-grade students' discrete emotions expressed during science activities in a 9-week unit on chemistry. Individual student's emotions were analyzed through multiple data sources including classroom videos, interviews, and emotions diaries completed…

This multiple case study was used to explore students' perceptions of what constitutes verbal feedback and what impacts their receipt and use of feedback. Interpretivist research was undertaken in a rural mixed secondary school in Cornwall, UK involving four year nine students (aged 13-14 years) from two separate classes over eleven weeks.…

Middle school students need relevant, meaningful contexts to apply emerging mathematical ideas. In this project, through the context of an architecture investigation, seventh-grade students engaged in mathematics involving area, surface area, volume, ratios and proportional thinking, number sense, and technology integration. Students, working in…

Early language development predicts later reading competence, but does reading to young children enhance the language interaction between them and their parents? Automatic assessment of language interaction now yields adult word counts, conversational turn counts and child vocalization counts. This study had 98 families return reading activity…

In this study, 935 undergraduate college students from a regional four-year university responded to an online time-diary survey asking them to report their multitasking habits and practices while engaged in four main activities: reading voluntarily for fun, reading for academic purposes, watching television (TV), and using the Internet. Results…

The processes and perceptions of students' self-regulated learning are not easily measured. Thus, research has presented and suggested numerous ways in which these processes and perceptions of self-regulated learning can be investigated and assessed. Accordingly, this study aims to assess whether training in how to regulate one's learning is…

Happiness research is a rapidly-growing area in social psychology and has emphasised the link between happiness and workplace productivity and creativity for knowledge workers. Recent articles in this journal have raised concerns about the level of happiness and engagement of Australian academics with their work, however there is little research…

A journal can help keep a person more organized, clarify their identity, and help them grapple with them own sense of belonging in the often bewildering world of academe. In this article, the author discusses: (1) the benefits and uses of keeping a journal; (2) Techniques for writing in a journal; and (3) Drawbacks of journal writing.

In this article, a teacher educator and a first-year teacher identify the role that genre, in a rhetorical sense, plays in reflective practice. As reflection in teacher education has been criticized for its potential to reinforce prior attitudes and dispositions within pre-service and beginning teachers, we see how meta-knowledge of genre is…

The practicum as a learning opportunity for prospective teachers of ESL or EFL remains underexplored. Most of the studies that have been documented in the TESOL practicum literature were conducted in either North America or a few Asian contexts with novice teachers. In this study the author used diaries by five Vietnamese EFL student teachers as…

This case describes the Diary-in-Group method (personal diary notations combined with group sessions) as used in a participative and action-oriented project which intended to contribute to new practice-based knowledge on what it means to be a first-level manager in a Swedish municipal social care administration, and to the learning and development…

Drawing on the data collected through classroom observations, participants' written journals, and in-depth interviews, this study examines the hyphenated identity constructions of 1.5- ("ilcem osey") and 2nd-generation heritage language learners. The study observes that ethnic and racial exclusion in a White dominant society was more…

Service to others plays a key role in the development of one's worldview. To study this key role, authors examined a sample of 38 student narratives in three phases: before, during, and 45 days after they served at an alternative break site around the United States. Students kept a prompt-based journal inspired by the tenets of the social change…

This study investigates "de facto" language policy in Estonia. It investigates how language choices at the micro (or individual) level are negotiated within the macro (or social and historical) context: how official language policy and other features of the discursive environment surrounding language and its use in Estonia translate into…