Incorporating Vygotsky's concept formation theory and Berger's appropriation theory, an assessment which highlights authentic operations with the concept of area was designed and administered to 44 sixth grade students to determine what types of understanding they maintained. The results indicated the more novel the situation, the more diverse…

John Dewey knew that when students were actively involved in their learning, they were more motivated and achieved higher. Unfortunately, our practices often negatively affect motivation, such as when teachers emphasize competition, social comparison, normative grading criteria, public forms of evaluation, and ability self-assessment. Most…

In this article we present a conceptual framework that we have found sufficiently robust and broad-based to offer a platform for engaging with social and educational challenges in collaboration with our students and research participants. In our framework we employ aspects of the work done by Engestrom (1987; 2001) in terms of cultural-historical…

This article presents the concept of facilitative theorizing as an alternative to prescriptive and descriptive theory in educational technology. The authors contend that these traditional forms of theory do not offer sufficient assistance to practitioners as they go about everyday design work. Facilitative theorizing, as an alternative, is…

This article problematizes the role of autobiographical narratives in adult learning and suggests that the life histories produced by adult learners in our classrooms are, in important senses, fictions. Rather than being the free expressions of experience and selfhood, students' narratives are multiply overdetermined, both by the cultural frames…

Unplanned events occur every day and have a deep impact on individuals' lives. The happenstance learning theory (Krumboltz, 2009; Krumboltz & Levin, 2010), briefly summarized in this article, provides guidance for employment counselors assisting clients to clarify goals and brainstorm actions to capitalize on chance events.

The purpose of this study is to apply the Rasch model to investigate both the Van Hiele theory for geometric development and an associated test. In terms of the test, the objective is to investigate the functioning of a classic 25-item instrument designed to identify levels of geometric proficiency. The dataset of responses by 244 students (106…

Previous research indicates that lesson study can support preservice teachers' abilities to professionally notice. This qualitative case study examined specific lexical and indexical conversational components of lesson study analysis meetings that afford or constrain elementary preservice teachers' incidences of professionally noticing students'…

Since Edwards' influential study on mature women students and families in the 1990s, questions have been raised about the effects of Higher Education (HE) on family lives. Edwards maintained that relationships were at risk of breakdown due to the changing identity, increased self-esteem and enhanced confidence levels of women students. Men were…

This article explores the development of pedagogical content knowledge in relation to one teacher's experience in learning to engage in a Vygotskian approach to teaching second language (L2) pragmatics known as "concept-based pragmatics instruction" (CBPI). The teacher, Mrs. Hanks, was a PhD candidate in second language acquisition at…

The purpose of this study is to explore the ways in which five educational leaders make use of online social network sites (SNSs) for their personal and professional learning. Specifically, I focus on how participants use social networking tools to create and maintain online learning communities, how they interact within these communities, and how…

Being a great teacher is part and parcel of being a great librarian. In this book, veteran instruction services librarian McAdoo lays out the fundamentals of the discipline in easily accessible language. Succinctly covering the topic from top to bottom, he: (1) Offers an overview of the historical context of library instruction, drawing on recent…

This study sought to find evidence for a beneficial learning theory to teach computer software programs. Additionally, software was analyzed for each learning theory's applicability to resolve whether certain software requires a specific method of education. The results are meant to give educators more effective teaching tools, so students…

This qualitative study explores the correspondence between contemplative practices and "orders of consciousness" from a constructive-developmental perspective, using Robert Kegan's approach. Adult developmental growth is becoming an increasingly important influence on humanity's ability to deal effectively with the growing complexity of…

A great deal has been written about adult learning in terms of approaches and strategies. However, very little has been published on best practices for teaching Information Technology Infrastructure Library ® (ITIL) certification course to IT professionals. This dearth of research, along with five years of experience teaching the course sparked my…