For over 3 years, 6 faculty members and 1 graduate student have gathered as a working group applying an interdisciplinary focus to public engagement projects involving immigrant families in the rural Midwest. One dimension of the group's effort has been to involve faculty, staff, and students from many disciplines in its examination of pertinent…

Understanding what autism means on a personal level can be an important process for young people on the autistic spectrum, and being able to reflect on this and discuss with autistic peers can be particularly helpful. However, opportunities may be restricted by reluctance to talk about diagnosis and because of difficulties in communication…

This study investigated secondary school students' engagement in epistemic and narrative practices of chemistry in the context of a chemistry story on gas behavior. Argumentation is an example of an epistemic practice in science and stories are one kind of narrative (Ricoeur, 1981). By using a chemistry story, the authors hoped to engage students…

This discussion-based lesson is designed to support Year 6 students in their initial understanding of using letters to represent numbers, expressions, and equations in algebra. The three level framework is designed for: (1) making thinking explicit, (2) exploring each other's solutions, and (3) developing new mathematical insights. In each level…

We report an intensive graduate teaching assistant (GTA) training program developed at The University of Chicago. The program has been assessed and has been successful in preparing GTAs for effective discussion and laboratory teaching for both general and organic chemistry. We believe that this training program can provide insightful information…

Interdisciplinary approaches to research in the sciences have become increasingly important in solving a wide range of pressing problems at both global and local levels. It is imperative then that science majors in higher education understand the need for exploring information from a wide array of disciplines. With this in mind, interdisciplinary…

These days it is hard not to notice that there is an election going on. Whether glancing at a newspaper, flipping on the TV, or just walking down the street, we see ads and information nearly everywhere. In 2012, my research team's study involving hundreds of adolescents found that the mass media's increased attention to politics can contribute to…

The current divisive presidential election highlights the importance of teaching students the skills of constructive public discourse. This article discusses the role teachers play in teaching students how to exchange ideas, listen respectfully to different opinions and experiences, try out ideas and positions, and give--and get--constructive…

With a goal of better understanding the online discourse within the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) context, this paper presents an open source visualisation dashboard developed to identify and classify emergent discussion topics (or themes). As an extension to the authors' previous work in identifying key topics from MOOC discussion contents,…

This article details how certain mathematical "discoveries" that Cavazos' fourth graders made were recorded throughout the year. Cavazos invited a math professor, a biologist, a literacy professor, a chemist, a statistician, and an engineering student, as well as their school principal and computer lab technician, both of whom are…

Why should teachers bother with student-driven discussions? Elizabeth A. City offers three reasons: (1) talking and thinking reinforce each other; (2) dialogue is a necessary skill of democracy, so schools should teach thinking, speaking, and listening as "practices of freedom"; and (3) student-driven talk is fun. Yet student-driven…

In this work, the phenomenon of student enthusiasm was explored in a population of 47 students of Touro Graduate School of Education who took the author's online psychology course. The purpose of the study was to find how students-enthusiasts differ from classmates in their communication style(s) reflected in group discussions on the Discussion…

NCTM's "Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All" (2014), outlines eight teaching practices for effective teaching and learning mathematics. One of them, facilitate meaningful mathematical discourse, states, "Effective teaching of mathematics facilitates discourse among students to build shared understanding of…

This article looks at a simple geometry problem that also involves some reasoning about number combinations, and show how it was used in a Year 7 classroom. The problem is accessible to students with a wide range of abilities, and provides scope for stimulating extensive discussion and reasoning in the classroom, as well as an opportunity for…

Play is considered an important activity of the early childhood years. Research supports the contribution of play to children's development, learning, and well-being. In spite of this, time for play is being pushed out in many early childhood programs by greater time allotted to formal instruction in narrow academic skills to be tested eventually…