Children enjoy water play, and kindergarten children can learn about the water cycle. Teachers are already introducing elements of the water cycle when discussing weather and bodies of water. The water cycle also can be a springboard for teaching children about plants and animals and the importance of water for sustaining life and shaping our…

This column includes activities inspired by children's literature. This month's issue shows that allowing students to use both photographs and information presented through technology helps them begin to construct an understanding of landforms and bodies of water and use models to describe these concepts. This months trade books are: (1) "Our…

Research in social psychology has the potential to address real-world issues involving racial stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. Literature on confrontation suggests that addressing racism can be seen as a persuasive act that will allow for more effective interpersonal interactions. In this article, we explore the persuasive…

Despite the enthusiasm around social-emotional learning, the vast number of skills, dispositions, and attitudes we hope to infuse into students will overwhelm even the most ambitious schools. However, a single core capacity underlies a great many social-emotional learning outcomes: social perspective taking. Recent research on this process of…

Teachers can regain their sense of efficacy if school leaders engage them in a systematic process, the Reflective Action Protocol, of reflecting on their classroom expectations and practices, making adjustments, and taking careful note of improvements in student learning. This process asks instructionally focused questions that push teachers to…

The demands and pressures during the first study year at university are likely to arouse a variety of emotions among students. Nevertheless, there are very few studies on the role of emotions in successful studying during the transition phase. The present study adopts a person-oriented and mixed-method approach to explore, first, the emotions…

Today, Information and communication technology has become a way of life in which children are drawn. Today's children are beginning to use digital tools at a very young age, so that the school should respond to the needs of students. Also today it is impossible for any profession performs without the help of information technology. The computer…

Elementary teachers in the United States are tasked with teaching all core subject matter and have training that involves many topics, which may limit the depth of their subject matter knowledge. Since they have low content knowledge, they often feel less confident about teaching technical subject matter, such as science (Bleicher "Journal of…

This article addresses a gap in methodological writing, concerning typical practice in designing qualitative inquiry, especially in research on educational leadership. The article focuses on how qualitative research designs are actually developed and explores implications for scholars' work, especially for new scholars and for methods teachers.…

The "consensus view" on the nature of science (NOS) is now outmoded. To help frame an enduring alternative, one should attend first to the "why" of NOS education. Functional, or civic, scientific literacy is foundational. Acknowledging a need for consumers and citizens to assess the reliability of scientific claims in personal…

In 2015, the Australian Government's Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) assessment of research quality declined to rate 1.5 per cent of submissions from universities. The public debate focused on practices of gaming or "coding errors" within university submissions as the reason for this outcome. The issue was about the…

Students need to be challenged to stimulate their learning. Applying challenge in practice however is not straightforward. Challenging students may conflict with other teacher responsibilities, creating potential dilemmas for teachers. This study discloses dilemmas teachers encounter when challenging students as well as the considerations…

Purpose: This paper aims to describe the principles underlying the successful implementation of a lecture recording service in higher education. Design/methodology/approach: The paper qualitatively reviews the practices and experiences of several years of automated lecture recording at a medium-sized university in Germany. Findings: The paper…

The radioactive nature of technetium is discussed using a combination of introductory nuclear physics concepts and empirical trends observed in the chart of the nuclides and the periodic table of the elements. Trends such as the enhanced stability of nucleon pairs, magic numbers, and Mattauch's rule are described. The concepts of nuclear binding…

Despite the increasing use of portable tablets in learning, their impact has received little attention in research. In five different projects, this media-ethnographic and design-based analysis of the use of portable tablets as a learning resource in science museums investigates how young people's learning with portable tablets matches the…