There is limited research on bilingual classroom teachers who conduct household visits of non-English speaking Hispanic families. The author and teacher explored (a) ways that three migrant, Hispanic families were involved with their children's school to promote mathematics and language literacy learning and communication; and (b) how these…

The New Opportunities Initiative (NOI) is a Portuguese flagship programme to recognise and accredit prior learning (RPL, APL) and to endow low-skilled adults with upper secondary qualifications, which is defined as the minimum entry threshold to the exercise of a full citizenship in a knowledge-rich society. NOI's major achievement has been its…

This report has been prepared in direct response to the Action Plan on Adult Learning "It is always a good time to learn" (European Commission, 2007), and, more specifically, to its stated objective of increasing the opportunities for adults to achieve a qualification at least one level higher than they previously held. The document…

This study investigated the extent to which learning readiness, prior-to-school experiences, and child and family characteristics influence children's literacy and numeracy achievement across the first year of primary school. A sample of 104 kindergarten children was recruited from 16 classrooms and followed from the beginning to the end of their…

The experiences of Chinese learners on two e-learning programmes in China were investigated, focusing particularly on the formation of learning communities. Data were collected using a range of instruments to access the learners' perspectives in depth and detail. Archer's account of reflexivity as the mediating power between structure and agency…

Distance education is not a new concept for all kinds of learners in the modern societies. Many researchers have studied traditional distance education programs for adult learners in the past, but little research has been done on Web-based distance education (WBDE) for adult learners. There are also many popular online universities in the U.S. or…

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of presentation formats of worked examples and the interaction effects between the presentation formats of worked examples and the prior knowledge of learners. An investigation with 97 middle school students working in four conditions (CPWE, CWE, PWE, and the control group) was conducted. The…

This study was designed as a confirmatory study of work on "productive failure" (Kapur, "Cognition and Instruction," 26(3), 379-424, 2008). N = 177, 11th-grade science students were randomly assigned to solve either well- or ill-structured problems in a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment without the provision of any…

New literacies researchers have identified a core set of strategies for locating information, one of which is "reading a Web page to locate information that might be present there" (Leu et al. in: Rush, Eakle, Berger (eds) "Secondary school reading and writing: What research reveals for classroom practices," 2007, p. 46). Do middle-school, high…

Jacky, an 11-year-old biliterate Latina, was the subject of this case study. She used her home funds of knowledge to become computer literate through the development of a website focused on Mexican heritage. The website, created via funds of knowledge drawn from the community, in turn involved families and the local community in computer…

Educational films for children aim to impart knowledge about a certain topic. In the present paper, it is investigated how much and what kind of information children can remember from educational films and how knowledge acquisition through films could be enhanced. The studies described here were designed to test the hypothesis that children's…

Often children's questions are about the things they observe. The beauty of using children's questions about life to inspire discussions is that it invites children to work collectively toward a common goal. This article describes the process of using children's questions to facilitate great group time interactions. The process starts where the…

This thesis uses empirical research in order to understand effective strategies for successfully teaching of the expository essay to ninth grade students. Five focal areas are studied for targeted intervention in order to discover best practices for maximizing student learning of the essay format. The study hypothesizes that in order for ninth…

We examined the influence of prior exposure to specific animal properties on 15-month-old infants' inductive generalization. Using picture books, 29 infants were trained on properties linked in a congruent or incongruent manner with four animal categories. A generalized imitation task was then administered to assess patterns of property extension…

This paper reports on the findings of a study conducted with a group of early childhood education undergraduate students. The study trialled a number of guided reflection techniques that acted to stimulate and provide a structure for reflection. These techniques were further supplemented by focus group discussions based on reflective principles,…