Several accounts concerning the systematic use of action research by eminent educators in the process of identifying and solving an educational problem(s) have appeared in professional journals. Thus, action research is gaining recognition by policy makers and educators as a tool for change However, this growing concept has not yet caught up in…

Who wins in sociolinguistic research undertaken in minority ethnolinguistic communities? This is a question that might at first glance seem an odd one. In fact, however, the concept of winning--with the concomitant themes of games and gamesmanship, plays and players, gains and losses, rewards and punishments, and so on--is an apposite one wherever…

This article asks how good video and computer game designers manage to get new players to learn long, complex and difficult games. The short answer is that designers of good games have hit on excellent methods for getting people to learn and to enjoy learning. The longer answer is more complex. Integral to this answer are the good principles of…

This study describes a technological pilot project providing 160 graduate students with asynchronous access to the ongoing proceedings of a lecture-based course. Exactly half of the students spoke the language of instruction, English, as a second language (ESL). While the asynchronous video-on-demand service proved popular overall, ESL students…

In earlier "humanitarian" accounts, Britain's voluntary blind institutions exemplified successful nineteenth-century philanthropy and later became effective partners of the state. From the 1970s, Victorian charity came increasingly under criticism and subsequent studies on disability condemn the exclusion and utilitarian training of a…

Reflection has long been an aspiration in education, from Aristotles Nicamachean Ethics, through Bacons (1605) Advancement of Learning and later articulated by John Dewey. Schon's reflective practitioner underpins the ethos in the professional training of teachers in the UK. This paper reviews approaches to reflection in learning and argues that…

This article describes the critical experiences of a middle school mathematics teacher as she progressed from a novice to a knowledgeable creator of technology-enhanced learning activities for her classroom. During an eight week intervention, cognitive apprenticeship strategies (Collins, 1991) were utilized in a partnership with the teacher until…

Practitioner research is defined as systematic inquiry-based efforts directed towards creating and extending professional knowledge and associated understandings of professional practice. A review of "primary research" articles published in the "Australian Journal of Early Childhood" revealed that only a small number involved…

Teaching in community college classrooms is characterized by increasing levels of diversity. Mobilizing diversity as a resource for learning can include specific instructional methods grounded in constructivist educational theory and border pedagogy. Their utility in pursuit of education fosters a form of cultural production enabling people to…

Recent high school reform efforts strongly recommend that schools model democratic principles and give students, teachers, parents, and community members a significant role in school governance and the decision-making process. Specific recommendations include the creation of site-based decision-making councils, student leadership forums, and…

This project focused on the goal of establishing a classroom model of motivation in which the source of student motivation is based on internal mechanisms or structures, along with the establishment of greater self-regulatory opportunities for students, and which results in greater student empowerment and motivation. One-hundred current elementary…

This paper will concentrate on the current shift from teaching to entitlement learning that has become a significant part of our educational discourse and culture. With increasing emphasis on accountability and high test score, students have become active recipients in "assessing" and "evaluating" the effectiveness of their learning experiences.…

In this article, the author describes the Comic Book Project, which encourages students to address social issues in their lives and schools with art and creativity. The project, founded and directed by Dr. Michael Bitz of Columbia University's Teachers' College in New York, aims primarily to promote literacy. It also gives children an empowering…

Reflection and change are pivotal themes in this paper, which outlines the rationale, methodology and principal findings of a research undertaking on teacher development in Ireland. The study was based on the premise that teachers' practices are guided in large measure by a "tacit knowledge" of education, formed in response to personal…

Amartya Sen's writings have articulated the importance of human agency, and identified the need for information on agency freedom to inform our evaluation of social arrangements. Many approaches to poverty reduction stress the need for empowerment. This paper reviews "subjective quantitative measures of human agency at the individual level." It…