This groundbreaking book provides teachers with an accessible, research-based blueprint for developing student metacognitive skills and ensuring that students take responsibility for their own learning. The authors use the findings of cognitive scientists to highlight quality questioning behaviors and explain how to apply them for improved student…

How can curriculum history be re-envisioned from a feminist, poststructuralist perspective? "Engendering Curriculum History" disrupts dominant notions of history as linear, as inevitable progress, and as embedded in the individual. This conversation requires a history that seeks "rememberance" not representation, "reflexivity" not linearity, and…

This article presents prominent educators who describe the most important quality of an effective teacher. Sonia Nieto, professor at Emerita, Language, Literacy, and Culture University of Massachusetts, argues that in this age of hubris and shameless self-promotion, humility is an essential quality for teachers to have. Joseph Semadeni, fifth…

Background: Education is aimed at students reaching conceptual understanding of the subject matter, because this leads to better performance and application of knowledge. Conceptual understanding depends on coherent and error-free knowledge structures. The construction of such knowledge structures can only be accomplished through active learning…

Toulmin's model of argumentation, developed in 1958, has guided much argumentation research in education. However, argumentation theory in philosophy and cognitive science has advanced considerably since 1958. There are currently several alternative frameworks of argumentation that can be useful for both research and practice in education. These…

"Teaching mathematics from a sense-making perspective entails more than solving non-routine problems" (NCTM 2007, p. 85). When teachers want students to see mathematics as something that makes sense, they must furnish opportunities for them to solve problems in their own way and use structures that nurture their reasoning and sense making. The…

This article presents an interview between the author and two teachers, Ruth Birtles and Michelle Proctor, who are involved in "Smart Kids", an AstraZeneca Science Teaching Trust (AZSTT) funded project for 2009-10 coordinated by the Centre for Science Education, Sheffield Hallam University. In this interview, Proctor and Birtles discuss…

Recent work in cognitive psychology has shown that repeatedly testing one's knowledge is a powerful learning aid and provides substantial benefits for retention of the material. To apply this in a human anatomy course for medical students, 39 fill-in-the-blank quizzes of about 50 questions each, one for each region of the body, and four about the…

This article argues the importance of including significant technologies-in-use as key qualitative research participants when studying today's digitally enhanced learning environments. We gather a set of eight heuristics to assist qualitative researchers in "interviewing" technologies-in-use (or other relevant objects), drawing on concrete…

Have you ever bought a computer program that you thought would be great for your struggling students, only to find that it did not work on your school computers, or that your students found it difficult to use? Selecting science software for students with learning and other disabilities can be a challenge. This Idea Bank provides a list of…

Throughout this group of authors' respective experiences as middle school teachers and teacher educators, they have worked with diverse populations of students with varying beliefs about education--students for whom achievement and success are perceived as foregone conclusions, students for whom school is viewed as a pathway to a better life, and…

This descriptive case study describes the use of documentary film to teach historical thinking in one undergraduate elementary social studies methods course. The study was situated within a teacher education program at a midsized public university in the Southeastern United States. Eighteen students were enrolled in the course. Of the eighteen…

While many studies have demonstrated that conversational tutoring systems have a positive effect on learning, the amount of manual effort required to author, design, and tune dialogue behaviors remains a major barrier to widespread deployment and adoption of these systems. Such dialogue systems must not only understand student speech, but must…

In a school with a transparent data culture, frequent, low-stakes Data Conversations happen all the time. Although most schools engage in Data Conversations at times, there are some specific strategies and "listen-fors" that can assist educators in making these conversations more productive, such as developing a low-stakes set of…

Most scientific articles address particular questions which are part of larger questions. The part-whole relationship varies.