The purpose of this article is to describe the results of an action-research, service-learning project aimed at increasing and enhancing urban students' knowledge and motivation to learn. The project was an extension of the students' classroom experience through a community-based, service-learning project. The study sought understanding of how…

Background: Research has shown that motivation is a key factor in the learning process as well as in school achievement. In essence, a number of researchers have highlighted the close link between motivation and achievement-related behaviours such as effort. Aims: The present study aims to acquire more specific information concerning the relations…

This paper reports some of the findings from the science subject design initiative team in the ESRC Interactive Education Project at the University of Bristol. The subject culture of secondary school science, characterised by a content-laden curriculum and assessment, but also with a tradition and requirement for practical work, is briefly…

The major advantage of STS is the kind of teaching it allows and demands. Twelve middle school teachers who were enthused with STS teaching selected two sections for a research study. One section was the experimental STS section; the other followed the course syllabus and textbook closely. The major findings indicate the advantages for STS as a…

Reflection is a commonly accepted practice and considered advantageous in teacher education programs. Teachers are encouraged to think critically about their beliefs and teaching styles with the intended goal of fostering greater professional and personal development. Nonetheless, researchers have noted the challenges inherent in encouraging…

In order to improve the spelling performance of high school students with deficits in written expression, an error self-correction procedure was implemented. The participants were two tenth-grade students and one twelfth-grade student in a program for individuals with learning disabilities. Using an alternating treatments design, the effect of…

International teaching assistants (ITAs) teach undergraduate science courses in American universities in ever growing numbers as they contend with a host of pedagogic, cultural, and language issues in an unfamiliar educational setting. Yet little is known about their experiences and development as new teachers. This study focuses on six ITAs who…

The Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) is a computer administered, open-ended (as opposed to multiple-choice) test of analytic reasoning, critical thinking, problem solving, and written communication skills. Because the CLA has been endorsed by several national higher education commissions, it has come under intense scrutiny by faculty members,…

A survey of research on French as a second language (FSL) education in Canada suggests that French immersion (FI) students enjoy significant linguistic, academic, and cognitive benefits. We organize our summary of the advantages of FI around these three themes, comparing students' proficiency in French and English across various FI programs, and…

The cell phone, now the most widely used medium in Asia, has major educational implications. Most users, however, do not realize the cell phone's potential for education, nor even for the communication functions for which it was originally designed. Most educators still see the computer and the cell phone as unrelated devices, and the tiny cell…

This article presents observations and discussion of the successful teaching of English to pupils, in English primary schools, for whom English is an additional language (EAL). It draws on research in Year 2 (6-7-year old) classes in three inner-city primary schools carried out in 2003 and 2005. Three recognized, effective teachers of literacy…

Using a case study approach, this article examines the challenges faced by a cooperating teacher and student teacher during their collaborative planning conversations. I draw on several analytical frameworks, including sociolinguistics, speech act theory and discourse analysis, to analyze the cooperating and student teacher's efforts and struggles…

In this paper the authors utilise findings from the Economic and Social Research Council-funded InterActive Education project to present a characterisation of the sub-culture of school music with Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in England. They consider the opportunities and challenges ICT presents to the teaching of primary (ages…

In this article, we explore an interactive learning process in a digital forum that focused on personal cases drawn from student teachers' classroom experience. To this end, we combined theoretical and methodological frameworks of knowledge-based and discourse-analytic perspectives that enabled us to uncover evidence showing what the students may…

This article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using information and communication technology (ICT) as a mediating artefact in the classroom compared to alternative tools with illustrations from a qualitative classroom study. The aim of the article is to describe and show the conditions that have to be satisfied if ICT is to have an…