The goal of the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Practice Guide, "Improving Adolescent Literacy: Effective Classroom and Intervention Practices," is to formulate specific and coherent evidence-based recommendations that educators can use to improve literacy levels among adolescents in upper elementary, middle, and high schools. It includes…

Steve Duck's scholarship has made a noticeable impact on the study of interpersonal communication. Of his works, one of the most noteworthy is the explanatory model of relationship disengagement and dissolution. Duck's Dissolution Model (DDM) explains the stages that relationships pass through when they encounter stress resulting in two…

This article presents a class activity where students work in dyads to select an artifact related to a course topic and, using this artifact, develop discussion questions to engage their classmates. This cultural artifact assignment is intended to, in part, answer John Dewey's call to cultivate connections between subject matter and life…

This article looks at three examples of children's and young adult literature that offer entertaining, accessible, and at times provocative, explorations of the rule of law in very different settings. Lewis Carroll's classic, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," finds Alice confronting a host of procedural irregularities and abuses of power within…

This article explores student teachers' perceptions and experiences over the course of the training year. It discusses five important themes to emerge from responses at intervals during the year; themes which, although in some respects contradictory, combine to create a picture of the conflicting feelings experienced by student teachers. This…

A number of ethical scandals in the past decade have raised awareness of ethical issues in business. J. M. D'Aquila, D. F. Bean, and E. G. Procario- Foley (2004) reported that 97% of business leaders perceive American businesses as ethical, versus 24.5% of students. G. R. Laczniak, M. W. Berkowitz, R. G. Brooker, and J. P. Hale (1995) provided…

In this article, the author describes a method of teaching he used with his Year 7 mathematics class. With this method, the author learned an important lesson that has positively affected his willingness to persevere with other ideas that do not immediately "click" in all aspects of teaching.

Mathematical argumentation is an important skill. It leads to the process of proof, which is one area that students are being asked to master by the end of secondary school. Encouraging explanation and justification in math class allows this skill to develop. Explaining and justifying their ideas forces students to think deeply about mathematics…

The author examines using problem-based learning (PBL) to guide preservice teachers' problem-solving abilities. Two classes of preservice teachers were divided into either an experimental group, who were taught to solve classroom problems using PBL, or a control group, who used traditional teaching methods such as discussion and videoclips of…

Professional journals serve the vital scientific function of disseminating knowledge to colleagues. In so doing, journals become the "face" and "voice" of the professional disciplines they represent. Journal content shows the major topics of interest, the scope, and the boundaries of the profession. It shows the techniques and methods of research…

The students in three sections of a class rated their knowledge and identified their view before and after each of five in-class debates. The degree of self-reported knowledge was significantly different after four of the five debates. Between 31% and 58% of participants changed their views after participating in or observing each debate. Some…

Online discussion forums provide open workspace allowing learners to share information, exchange ideas, address problems and discuss on specific themes. But the substantial impediment to its promotion as effective e-learning facility lies in the continuously increasing messages but with discrete and incoherent structure as well as the loosely-tied…

Background/Context: Research has demonstrated that moving from traditional teacher-directed, monologic practices to dialogic discussions remains a daunting challenge. The reasons for this staying power are multiple: Teachers often stick with familiar canonical texts; districts often mandate the literature teachers must use; standardized tests…

Classroom discourse is structured by socially accepted ways in which knowledge is presented and by established procedures for carrying out educational activities. However, the underlying linguistic and social ground rules are usually implicit, for students as well as for teachers. The implicitness of these ground rules has been attributed to…

The Yellowstone cutthroat trout (YCT; "Oncorhynchus clarki bouvieri") has become a species of special concern for Yellowstone National Park (YNP) fisheries biologists. Although this subspecies formerly occupied a greater area than any other inland cutthroat trout, the current distribution of YCT is now limited to several watersheds within the…