This article outlines an approach to class advising which draws on research-based techniques to elicit feedback and discussion from students. The purpose of using this method is to enhance communication, increase student engagement, and improve the relationship between the faculty and the class of students.

Science education reform calls for learners to be engaged in hand-on, minds-on activities related to science. As a part of this reform effort, learners are encouraged to use writing as a means of documenting their work and developing their understandings. This qualitative case study employed the Conceptual Change Perspective and Sociocultural…

This dissertation examines the participation of one Chinese teacher and five 13 to 15 year-old Chinese heritage students in a classroom in a Chinese community school during group discussions about narrative texts. In this study, the teacher used Collaborative Reasoning (CR) (Anderson, et al., 2001) to help the Chinese heritage students extend…

This paper describes the "practice architectures"; and "ecologies of practice" of LS (lesson study) in an Indonesian private elementary school. It aims at drawing on LS as a form of professional learning from the perspective of contemporary practice theory (Kemmis, Wilkinson, Hardy, & Edwards-Groves, 2009; Kemmis, 2009a,…

This article examines the experiences of seven teacher educators who met monthly over one academic year to engage in a collaborative self-study focused on exploring the text, "Developing a Pedagogy of Teacher Education: Understanding Teaching and Learning about Teaching." Through reflective discussion focused on relating the text to our…

In this essay, the author explores the notion that the focus of learning in classrooms and schools extends beyond the learning of individuals to create a collective body of knowledge that is larger than what any one person knows. This idea was examined in a collaboration between Project Zero researchers and educators from the municipal preschools…

Increasing evidence shows that punitive discipline is ineffective and detrimental. Using empowerment theory and the opportunity-to-learn conceptual framework, this literature review seeks to broaden school personnel's knowledge of alternative discipline interventions. Searching ERIC and JSTOR databases, we looked for English language, North…

Findings are reported from a year-long evaluation of the effectiveness of the SPRinG programme relative to a control group. SPRinG aimed to address the wide gap between the potential of group interaction to promote learning and its limited use in schools. The project involved working with teachers to develop strategies for enhancing pupil group…

Participants' performances of outdoor skills and leadership are interpreted for environmental learning using Ingold's (2000) notion of an "education of attention": the fine-tuning of their perception. The actual tasks and activities of adventure travel have until recently gone largely unquestioned; but the relationship between skills and…

The purpose of this paper was to report on the findings of a study examining students' online interaction patterns. The context of the study was a graduate online class delivered via Blackboard[R]. The primary data for the study came from students' discussion board postings, online learning journals, and course grades. Various data analysis…

This study analysed the relationships between teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence in online learning environments (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000), with an emphasis on examining ways in which the design of instructor presentation formats relates to student responses in discussion forums. Both quantitative and…

In an increasingly digital society, educators are encouraged to use synchronous online technologies. This study attempts to explore the community of inquiry in a web conferencing system through synchronous interactions and focuses on the relationships between cognitive presence and academic achievements. Participants were teacher candidates…

Contribution: This paper has demonstrated that the use of blended learning in an electrical machines course has increased student engagement, pass rate, and scores across the GPA spectrum. Background: Lack of engagement by students in electric machine courses have been reported across the world. Interventions however, usually take the form of…

The present study investigated The Mixxer language exchange site (https://www.language-exchanges.org/) as a typical informal online community of self-directed language learners with a focus on how learners interact with each other. Learners' perception was also studied regarding how their language learning was impacted by their participation in…

The purpose of this study was to examine how students used the elements of a historical argument to interpret how equality and opportunity affected marginalized groups in a given historical era. To do this, 150 eighth grade students wrote thirteen historical arguments, and submitted a written portfolio of their work at the end of the school year.…