This paper is part of a research study undertaken with Portuguese teachers. The main objective is to understand the impact of recent educational legislation on the quality of teaching and the professional development of teachers. In this context the following research questions were formulated: "Do the education policies of the government…

The intent of the Florida College and Career Readiness Initiative (FCCRI) is to help students become college-ready by high school graduation, and subsequently to succeed in obtaining college credentials. This is done by testing college readiness in grade 11 and requiring that students testing below college-ready take college readiness and success…

The study examined preschool students' use of thinking strategies when responding to deep structure questions during interactive book readings. The children were enrolled in two different inclusive preschool classrooms in a large Midwestern city. The study explored which thinking strategies the preschool children used when answering deep structure…

Many researchers, policymakers, and university administrators have called for more students to major in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields to address the critical need for a diverse and technically skilled workforce that is prepared to address national problems and educate its future STEM leaders. One of the questions…

This article aims to present examples of trainer talk that scaffold trainee teachers' understanding of teaching in a post-observation feedback session. Previous research into scaffolding in a teacher training context describes scaffolding at a technique or strategy level, without describing how, in linguistic terms, the trainer can support and…

In this paper we examine how two groups of middle school students arrive at shared understandings of and solutions to mathematical problems. Our data consists of logs of student participation in the Virtual Math Teams (VMT) system as they work on math problems. The project supports interaction both through chat and through a virtual whiteboard. We…

Mathematical discussions support and promote student learning as an integral part of the contexts in which students learn mathematics. Yet, American school practices often focus on teachers disseminating knowledge to students and students acquiring that knowledge through rote rehearsal rather than higher order thinking. One barrier to change in…

This study was carried out in the context of formative assessment where assessment and learning were integrated to enhance both teaching and learning. The purpose of the study was to: (a) identify pupils' ideas about biological inheritance through the use of a concept cartoon, pupils' drawings and talk, and (b) devise scaffolding structures that…

In CSCL contexts ("Computer Supported Collaborative Learning") collaborative activities with different levels of structuredeness are often used to foster discussion and exchange among students and enhance collaboration. In this field the debate around whether and to what extent it is useful to structure the activities proposed to students, is…

The article examines the problems of teaching William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" after the Holocaust, arguing that even though the play is anti-Semitic, it can become a valuable teaching tool when placed in the context of the Holocaust memoirs "Dry Tears" by Nechama Tec and "The Nazi Officer's Wife" by…

This descriptive study investigates the ways that students in an Ancient History class make meaning of past events by relating them to their present lives and experiences. The study is grounded in theories of historical thinking, particularly focusing on the concepts of presentism and its usefulness for examining classroom teaching. The following…

This article describes the adaptation of the Bilingual Aphasia Test (BAT) to the Rarotongan dialect of Cook Islands Maori, a Polynesian language spoken in the Cook Islands and expatriate communities. A brief linguistic sketch of Rarotongan is presented. As Rarotongan is characterised by a complex pronominal system, "a" versus "o" possession and…

This paper examines engagement with an online discussion forum, aiming to identify the different levels of participation and to investigate factors that encourage or discourage student participation. The case involved the posing of a short real-life problem via a forum on the university's virtual learning environment. An in-class survey was…

The paper examines how young people describe experiences of bullying when participating in an Internet community dedicated to young people experiencing mental health problems. The micro-analytic focus demonstrates how young people construct their identities in relation to their telling about their experiences of being victims of bullying,…

In the UK and across Europe, rising concern about religion has impacted on religious education (RE), with a new emphasis being placed on dialogue for developing community cohesion. In this article it is suggested that the new emphasis on dialogue for community cohesion in RE also presents an opportunity to improve dialogic pedagogy for spiritual…