This article offers insight into what makes literacy tasks engaging or disengaging based on observations of and interviews with students. In a yearlong study of a sixth-grade classroom in a Title I school, students engaged in integrated literacy-social studies instruction. Researchers studied the degree of task openness and the degree to which…

To identify the broader autism phenotype (BAP), the Family History Interview subject and informant versions and an observational tool (Impression of Interviewee), were developed. This study investigated whether the instruments differentiated between parents of children with autism, and parents of children with Down syndrome (DS). The BAP scores of…

Following the election of the Conservative--Liberal Democrat UK coalition Government in 2010, there has been an urgent intensification and focus upon early years numeracy and literacy and promoting systematic synthetic phonics. This paper argues that the current narrowing of early years assessment, along with increased inspection and surveillance,…

The conceptions early childhood educators (ECEs) hold about infants can guide their pedagogical practices in ways that can enable and constrain infants' experiences. Literature regarding infants' development and the role of adults in infant learning theoretically positions infants as both being capable of independent learning, and needing adult…

Popular culture is often a site of contestation in preschool classrooms. A multisited ethnographic design revealed preschools employed varied strategies to limit popular culture. Teacher and children's actions were considered through Michel de Certeau's (1984) concepts of tactics and strategies. Interviews and observations revealed children were…

The current study examined undergraduate student understanding of, and interest in, course material as potential antecedents to student experiences of flow within a classroom setting. In addition, the social, informative, and contagious nature of flow were examined, as was the influence of being in flow during classroom coverage of material on…

Increasingly, states and districts are combining student growth measures with rigorous, rubric-aligned teacher observations in constructing teacher evaluation measures. Although the student growth or value-added components of these measures have received much research and policy attention, the results of this study suggest that the data generated…

Vygotsky (1987) stated that the restructured form of everyday concepts learned at home and in the community interact with scientific concepts introduced in formal school settings, leading to a higher level of scientific thinking for school-aged children. But, what does this mean for the scientific learning of infants and toddlers? What kinds of…

Objective: Assess impact and feasibility of a Tobacco-Free Ambassador Program on campus policy compliance. Participants: Trained Ambassadors made 253 visits to campus sites over 15 months to observe and/or approach violators. Methods: Policy violators were observed at 23 locations during Wave 1 (April-June 2012) and/or Wave 2 (April-June 2013).…

This article presents the results of a Master's study conducted at the Graduate Program in Education of Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso, which sought to understand how educational practices occur in the teaching of art in Youth and Adult Education in Cuiabá city, Mato Grosso state, Brazil, using qualitative, descriptive and interpretative…

How do you recognize an effective teacher's sociocultural consciousness? Tamara Wallace's and Brenda Brand's argument that sociocultural consciousness is the "brain" of effective culturally responsive instruction for students of color comes at a time when the system of teacher evaluation is being overhauled nationwide.…

Background: Extant research has traditionally associated children's achievement motivation with socio-emotional parental behaviours such as demonstrations of affect, responsiveness, and the degree of parental control. Aims: This study explored the extent to which parental socio-emotional and instructional behaviours (including the contingency…

Many students have owned or seen fluids toys in which two immiscible fluids within a closed container can be tilted to generate waves. These types of inexpensive and readily available toys are fun to play with, but they are also useful for provoking student learning about fluid properties or complex fluid behavior, including drop formation and…

Science projects, which engage non-professional scientists in one or more stages of scientific research, have been gaining popularity; yet maintaining participants' activity level over time remains a challenge. The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential for a short-term, focused campaign to increase participant activity in a…

Within the design studio, and across multiple field sites, the authors compare involvement of research tools and materials during collaborative processes of designing. Their aim is to trace temporal dimensions (shifts/ movements) of where and when learning takes place along different sites of practice. They do so by combining participant…