Reaching consensus on the meaning of professional development is needed to integrate professional development across various sectors of the early childhood field, distinguish various professional development approaches, match learning opportunities to learner characteristics, and evaluate its effects on professional practices and child and family…

A key component of current British military education is the battlefield tour and staff ride. These tours allow students to visit the location of military events, most commonly the battlefields of the First and Second World Wars in northern Europe, to facilitate their understanding of military history and draw contemporary parallels from the…

Typically, classroom photography is used to identify children's cubbies or to capture only special events in school. Rarely is it used as an everyday teaching tool. However, with the increasing affordability and availability of disposable and digital cameras, photography can be readily used in classrooms to facilitate learning. In one preschool…

The School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies at the University of Nottingham hosted the fifth annual conference in the "Innovative Language Teaching at University" series. Under the heading "Enhancing participation and collaboration" the conference, organised by Cecilia Goria, Oranna Speicher and Sascha Stollhans, took…

Papers from the proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society was submitted in two volumes. Volume 1 contains papers submitted at the conference held in Sofia, Bulgaria, June 14-17, 2016. Volume 2 contains papers submitted at the 4th International Partner Conference of the International Research Centre…

This study empirically investigated the impact of an online learning community project on university students' motivation in learning Chinese as a foreign language (CFL). A newly-proposed L2 motivation theory--the L2 motivational self system (Dornyei 2005; 2009)--was used as the theoretical framework for this study. The three aspects of motivation…

Precepting, coaching, and mentoring are teaching methods used extensively in nursing education in U.S. healthcare facilities. Filipino nurse immigrants have cultural backgrounds that may influence their experience with and perspectives of these learning interventions. Although Filipino nurse immigrants comprise approximately 0.2% of the population…

This study investigated the informal learning experiences expressed by Taiwanese adults (aged from 16 to 97) and examined their involvement related to selected socio-demographic characteristics. Data of the 2008 Adult Education Participation Survey in Taiwan and Fujian Area were used to look at different variables of adults' demographic…

Educational practices that purposely seek to tie the realities of place to instruction, particularly for the purpose of student engagement, are typically referred to as place-based education. This study investigates how one teacher considered place in making instructional choices for eighth grade English students in a rural high school, and…

The benefits of family involvement in the education of children with disabilities are well documented. Few teacher education programs, however, implement specific strategies for encouraging interactions between families and those preparing to be teachers. The University of South Florida St. Petersburg and the local membership of a professional…

Chemistry has become increasingly multidisciplinary. Starting in middle school and high school, however, the different disciplines are taught as distinct subjects and little effort is made to emphasize overlapping concepts. Development of innovative approaches to teaching science through the integration of technology is needed to provide students…

The vast majority of teachers who engage in the process of National Board certification describe it as the best professional development they have ever experienced - even when they do not achieve the certification. Learning leverage, an interactive dynamic characterized by rigor, reward, and risk, is what makes the certification process such a…

This study presents a structural model that integrates vocabulary knowledge and motivation with six latent variables: the initial appraisal of vocabulary learning experience, self-regulating capacity of vocabulary learning, strategic vocabulary learning involvement, mastery of vocabulary learning tactics, vocabulary knowledge, and postappraisal of…

The Le@rning Federation, an agency funded by Australian and New Zealand governments, initiated a Field Review project as the start of a long-term research study to evaluate the impact, application and effectiveness of the online digital content developed according to the learning object model. In terms of content, the pilot Field Review found that…

In this study, we investigate the effects of conversational agents on communication and interaction when used to assist participants in developing an online portfolio. Data from 52 participants were gathered and analyzed through questionnaires, written reflections, transcripts of student-agent interactions, and focus groups. Data revealed that…