Central to The Lab School model is Sally Smith's Club Methodology, the full immersion of students into a time period where historical information is learned through multi-sensory activities. While immersed, through the use of costumes and elaborately decorated classrooms, students are engaged in project-based learning. As the student's…

This paper describes a teaching model, "The Teaching Artist", developed to address the pedagogical and cultural divide between the traditional dance teacher and the dance artist who teaches: traditionally, one teaching about dance and the other, teaching through dance. The "Teaching Artist" model was developed through the…

Contemporary trends in the treatment of religion in children's literature represent a dramatic shift from the religious didacticism of past centuries. Books from mainline publishing houses today that deal with religion tend to eschew religious assumptions or doctrine, focusing rather on the questions young people have. This article describes four…

The authors investigated whether the amount of instructional guidance affects science learning and self-efficacy. Sixty 9- and 10-year-old children were randomly assigned to one of the following three instructional conditions: (a) guided instruction consisting of examples and student-generated explanations, (b) direct instruction consisting of a…

A great number of teachers in the United States have found themselves wrestling with an internal conflict between their teaching beliefs and a need to revert back to traditional modes of teaching in order to have their students demonstrate proficiency on high-stakes tests. While they want to include more non-traditional methods in their repertoire…

Stories of veteran teachers have much to contribute to our understanding of how to approach the current problem of teacher attrition. We examined the stories of one teacher, Betty Peck, who had more than 50 years' experience teaching, with the goal to explore what dispositions she considered most important to her resilience as a teacher. We found…

In this brief retrospective essay, the value of a particular kind of classroom talk is extolled--not the kind of talk that simply feeds back information, but rather talk that has the power to shape knowledge through participant engagement with a range of processes: hypothesising, exploration, debate and synthesis. This kind of talk is the…

In this paper we suggest a practical, talk-based model for the successful pursuit of teaching science in primary classrooms (Loxley et al., 2010). This model is not only based on our own experience of teaching in primary schools, and of training teachers to do so, but is also based substantially on research on classroom talk, which has built upon…

Test-based assessment tools are mostly focused on the use of computers. However, advanced Information and Communication Technologies, such as handheld devices, opens up the possibilities of creating new assessment scenarios, increasing the teachers' choices to design more appropriate tests for their subject areas. In this paper we use the term…

Using a computer-based scientific discovery learning environment on buoyancy in fluids we investigated the "effects of goal specificity" (nonspecific goals vs. specific goals) for two goal types (problem solving goals vs. learning goals) on "strategy use" and "instructional efficiency". Our empirical findings close an important research gap,…

Given the current international context of instability and uncertainty, we were driven by the desire to utilize a digital game to cut across the complexity of public policy, so as to educate our young with the experience and deep learning to be appreciative, accountable and proactive citizens of a globalized world. Having developed a curriculum…

The purpose of this investigation was to understand how six students, an alumna, and a faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro perceived their space to emerge as leaders in service-learning endeavors, and to gain insight into how universities create that space. The results indicated that providing support, resources, and…

Curricular reform efforts are underway in many countries, focused on adopting inquiry-based approaches to teaching and learning. Therefore, it is increasingly important to understand what outcomes students attain in inquiry environments. Derived from a literature review, a 23-item, criterion-referenced inventory is presented for theoretically…

Two experiments were conducted, contrasting a minimally guided discovery condition with a variety of instructional conditions. College students interacted with a computer-based tutor that presented algebra-like problems in a novel graphical representation. Although the tutor provided no instruction in a discovery condition, it constrained the…

This paper reports findings from a study of young children's views about electric circuits. Twenty-eight children aged 5 and 6 years were interviewed. They were shown examples of circuits and asked to predict whether they would work and explain why. They were then invited to try out some of the circuit examples or make circuits of their own…