The usefulness of the dictionary as a reliable source of information for word meanings, spelling, and pronunciation is widely recognized. But even in these obvious matters, the information that the dictionary has to offer is not always accurately interpreted. With respect to pronunciation there seem to be two general pitfalls: (1) the…

The author created a lesson in which students successfully practiced reading comprehension skills while developing an understanding of earthquakes. Not only did this lesson help students gain an understanding of the impact of earthquakes, a subject embedded into Missouri's eighth-grade science curriculum, but it also addresses one of the new…

The importance of metacognition in the process of learning is an old idea that can be traced from Socrates' questioning methods to Dewey's twentieth-century stance that one learns more from reflecting on one's experiences than from the actual experiences themselves (Dewey, 1933). What is more recent is the coining of the term "metacognition" and…

What makes a discourse coherent? One potential factor has been discussed in the linguistic literature in terms of a Question under Discussion (QUD). This approach claims that discourse proceeds by continually raising explicit or implicit questions, viewed as sets of alternatives, or competing descriptions of the world. If the interlocutor accepts…

The purpose of this study is to uncover and understand the factors that affect secondary science and mathematics teachers' initial implementation of Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment (TEFA), a pedagogy developed for teaching with classroom response system (CRS) technology. We sought to identify the most common and strongest factors, and to…

Twenty-four free-response questions were developed to explore introductory college astronomy students' understanding of gravity in a variety of contexts, including in and around Earth, throughout the solar system, and in hypothetical situations. Questions were separated into three questionnaires, each of which was given to a section of…

The current study investigated the value of Socratic classroom communication (e.g., critical debate and challenging each other on content matters) among students from various cultures (clustered into Western Europeans, Eastern Europeans and Non-Europeans) and from members of faculty at an international university in Germany. Students from Western…

Thirteen online mathematics classes were analyzed using a discourse coding system created by Bellack et al. (1966). Findings suggest that the ratio of teacher-to-student discourse is far lower in online than in face-to-face classes and varies widely from instructor to instructor. A strong positive correlation was shown between instructor posts and…

Argumentation is recognized as a significant aspect of science education for the development of students' scientific literacy, and the science teacher is the key factor in organizing argumentative discourse in the science classroom. Composing argumentation in the classroom requires teachers to not only acquire the basic understandings and skills…

The aim of this study is to compare the change of pre-service science teachers' views about the nature of scientific knowledge through Project-Based History and Nature of Science training and Conventional Method. The sample of the study consists of two groups of 3rd grade undergraduate students attending teacher preparation program of science…

The microblogging service Twitter offers a platform that social studies educators increasingly use for professional development, communication, and class activities, but to what ends? The authors drew on Deweyan conceptions of participatory learning and citizenship aims of the field as lenses through which to consider social media activities. To…

This purpose of the study was to determine the effects of teachers using the Question Exploration Routine (QER) in regularly scheduled secondary-level English Language Arts classes to help students answer questions about the development and use of main ideas in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." Questions were posed in both…

With the advent of Common Core standards that focus on speaking and listening, discussion should be a tool in every elementary teacher's tool belt. As they discuss a topic, elementary students learn not just the content, but also the skills and social norms they need to become contributing members of our society. Discussion helps students to…

Teachers can incorporate topics in forensic psychology into lower level courses to increase student interest and to show how psychological processes influence outcomes in high-stakes applied contexts. One such topic is eyewitness identification, which teachers can use to show how stress affects memory and how memories can become distorted during…

Prior research points to a meaningful confidence-accuracy (CA) relationship for positive identification decisions. However, there are theoretical grounds for expecting that different aspects of the CA relationship (calibration, resolution, and over/underconfidence) might be undermined in some circumstances. This research investigated whether the…