COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization and a public health emergency by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in March 2020 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2020). In the following months, families in the U.S. experienced financial hardships such as job and income loss, increasing food insecurity, and loss of…

Teaching English as a Foreign Language from a New Literacy Perspective (2nd edition) is intended to be both a guide for EFL student teachers (i.e. prospective teachers of English enrolled in pre-service EFL teacher education programmes provided by faculties of education at the undergraduate level), and a resource book for EFL teacher educators…

Online labs (OLs) constitute digital educational tools which can have a significant role in supporting science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) teachers in their daily teaching practice. Designing STEM lessons supported by specific OLs is a challenging task and thus, it is useful for STEM teachers to be able to share their lesson…

Reading and writing are essential skills that students use as they learn science. For students to attain scientific literacy, they must create meaningful lessons capitalizing on curiosity and natural wonders about the world, through which students speak, read, and write about their science experiences. The inquiry-based lesson described in this…

This study considers the teaching of historical and territorial issues between Japan and China for the current Japanese social studies curriculum. For research purposes, a lesson plan was designed and facilitated in Japanese elementary and junior high schools. This lesson addressed ongoing tensions between Japan and China over the sovereignty of…

Every culture has developed some version of performance art. Children especially appreciate performance; their innate openness, forgiveness, and self-love make them delightful performers and audience members. Every time they engage with performance art, children are learning about storytelling, history, sociability, artistry, and physicality.…

Originating in Asia, lesson study is gradually spreading around the globe. As evident from the papers in this issue, we have much to learn as it is implemented in a variety of cultural contexts. In this article we reflect on the goals of lesson study, the organizational supports required to sustain the practice in various contexts, and the…

This descriptive study explored how teachers implemented interactive practices during vocabulary instruction after participating in a professional development initiative comprised of an initial workshop to provide an overview of vocabulary research and instruction, opportunities for teachers to receive targeted feedback on audiotaped classroom…

With the ever-growing needs for more resources, the lack of concentration on preparing an exclusive activity for a particular classroom can be observed in a large number of educational contexts. The present study investigates the efficiency of ready-made activities for busy teachers. To this end, an activity from the ready-made resource book,…

This article introduces "samulnori" (Korean percussion ensemble), its cultural background, and instructional methods as parts of a classroom approach to teaching upper-level general music. We introduce five of eight sections from "youngnam nong-ak" (a style of samulnori) as a repertoire for teaching Korean percussion music to…

"Problem-Based Learning in the Life Science Classroom, K-12" offers a great new way to ignite your creativity. Authors Tom McConnell, Joyce Parker, and Janet Eberhardt show you how to engage students with scenarios that represent real-world science in all its messy, thought-provoking glory. The scenarios prompt K-12 learners to immerse…

Curriculum materials are integral to the teaching and learning of mathematics and have been described as having the most influence on what teachers actually plan for and enact in their classrooms. In this paper we describe how two teachers with varying years of experience, but similar experiences with curriculum materials, use curriculum materials…

Lesson planning employs both pedagogical and content knowledge. The processes are complex and student teachers, undergoing practicum, struggle to plan. However, studies that explain processes drawn from a qualitative inquiry to explain the practice are rare. The purpose of this study is to generate a theory to explain Thai EFL student teachers'…

Student ratings of instruction can be a valuable indicator of teaching because the quality measurement of instruction identifies areas where improvement is needed. Student ratings of instruction are expected to evaluate and enhance the teaching strategies. Evaluation of teaching effectiveness has been officially implemented in Taiwanese higher…

Teacher collaboration, and teacher professional development within this context, has become an area of interest in recent years. In particular, teacher education has seen the rise of collaboration as an effective school-based professional development activity, where in-service teachers plan, observe and reflect on lessons together. The most common…