This article describes a study which was designed to explore how sentence openers supported students' construction of arguments in an online learning environment. The study involved a group of students from a teacher training institute in Singapore. As part of the overall teacher training program, the students attended a course that equipped them…

It is argued that online discussion is a useful tool for creating opportunities for learning in teacher education. In a project designed to improve the practicum in rural areas, researchers placed pre-service teachers (PSTs) in two different moderated online discussion forums: an unstructured personal blog space and a structured threaded…

Social presence (represented by salience of instructor and fellow students) in an online teaching environment has been shown to influence perceptions of course activity and self-estimates of learning. An experiment is described here in which teacher presence is manipulated via personalized messages from the teaching assistant throughout the…

This paper proposes and discusses how to use an assignment based on "Freakonomics" as a way to foster critical thinking and statistical literacy skills within the classroom.

Life Skills Education (LSE) is a novel promotional program that teaches generic life skills through participatory learning methods of games, debates, role-plays, and group discussion. Conceptual understanding and practicing of the skills occurs through experiential learning in a non-threatening setting. Such initiatives provide the adolescent with…

This study examines the use of wireless laptop technology to support the application of problem-based learning (PBL) in a special education methods course. This field based course used a progressive disclosure process in weekly seminars to address issues posed in a case study. Eight scenarios, all related to the case, were presented to upper level…

Experienced managers know that perceptions matter greatly when it comes to working effectively with employees. The task for organizational behavior (OB) instructors, especially in the undergraduate classroom, is to make the perceptions topic come alive for students who may not appreciate at first the application and significance of this subject…

If education is an inalienable right for children and young people with disabilities, securing employment plays a key role in their inclusion into adult life. A broad study was conducted to analyse the transition between the end of compulsory education and the beginning of employment in young people with disabilities in the Autonomous Community of…

Assessment of students' learning in school is deeply implicated in teaching for social justice. Yet classroom assessment is neglected relative to other aspects of curriculum and pedagogy in the literature on teaching for social justice. Some books have a relatively clear theory of anti-oppression education at their core but do not provide details…

What does it take to convince an education professor with leadership potential to seriously consider becoming a dean? In this article, the authors highlight what was learned at a conference where deans and mid-career faculty members discussed ways to tap and prepare future leaders. Funded by the Spencer Foundation, the conference was held in June…

This action research study explored the effects of an intervention linking both culture and citizenship in a tenth-grade English language class, and aimed at finding evidence of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) skills through the writing of narrative texts in English. Participants were 75 tenth-grade students, between the ages of 14…

Academic workloads in online learning are influenced by many variables, the complexity of which makes it difficult to measure academic workloads in isolation. While researching issues associated with academic workloads, professional development stood out as having a substantive impact on academic workloads. Many academics in applied health degrees…

Many post-secondary common book programs purport to increase a sense of community on campus. This study explored whether a common book program at a Canadian university was able to create a sense of community among students. Results indicate that in-class discussions about the book, liking the Facebook page, attending the author lecture, and…

This study compared "Structured Controversy" (a semi-formal debate like small group activity) with a traditional open discussion format for medical and physical therapy students. We found that those students who had participated in Structured Controversy changed their personal opinion on the topic more than those who were in the Open Discussion…

This article describes a sixteen-week, read-aloud intervention conducted using culturally and experientially-relevant literature with six urban middle school youth with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD), to facilitate prosocial skill development through opportunities for personal reflection and sharing through journaling and group…