One of the unique promises of sociology is to illuminate the intersection of the personal and public by encouraging largely individually-oriented students to examine interrelationships between themselves and the social world. This can be an especially challenging task when teaching introductory sociology courses that are populated largely by…

The paper reports and discusses a government-initiated nationwide assessment of writing proficiency among Norwegian compulsory school students. A sample-study of 7th and 10th grade students are discussed and reported with regard to challenges in measuring writing skills in a valid and reliable manner. For the 7th graders the results showed a…

Service-learning has become a popular pedagogy because of its numerous and far-reaching benefits (e.g. student interest, engagement, and retention). In part, the benefits are a result of the student learning while providing a service that reflects a true need--not simply an exercise. Although service-learning projects have been developed in the…

The "highly qualified" teaching credential required by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is forcing new models of secondary special education service delivery. One effect has been a reduction in special education content classes and a concomitant increase in co-teaching. In one teaching arrangement, "instructional…

Students learn more effectively with personally meaningful tasks. Thus, students learn more if they have a say in deciding what specific topics and examples are being discussed in class. Naturally, the instructor knows what topics are important to cover in a course and which ones might be optional. Finding the right balance between students'…

The number of academic eBooks in university libraries is increasing. Reading digital materials such as newspapers is valued in Hong Kong; however, students' perceptions of the value of reading academic eMaterials are not well known. In this study we investigated 12 students' use of academic eBooks on mobile readers in two ways. Six students had…

This study investigates the infusion of intercultural inquiry into subject-area curriculum courses in a teacher education program. Drawing from data that include questionnaires, student assignments, and interviews, the research focuses on how student teachers responded to critical explorations of diversity within curriculum courses in second…

Most teachers only dream of their students spending the amount of motivation, attention, passion, and critical thinking on their classes that some students do playing videogames. This investigation examines the success, pitfalls, and lessons learned from incorporating videogame-like components into an educational technology class. For example,…

This qualitative study investigates the invented spellings of young EFL writers in terms of the relationship between phonological awareness and internalized grapheme-phoneme principles. Two kindergarteners and two first graders participated in weekly English writing tasks for 14 months. Results obtained from protocols of the students' free writing…

This article summarizes the literature concerning the use of visual and textual metaphors and describes outcomes of a project designed to help teacher education candidates begin integrating their personal beliefs about teaching with their growing professional knowledge and emergent practice. By using metaphors, teacher educators have the…

This paper investigates the relationship between learning style, as determined by Kolb's Learning Style Inventory, age and one measure of academic performance in design assignments for two cohorts of first- and third-year architecture students. The paper focuses on the results of a cross-curriculum learning style survey conducted as part of a…

This research sought to add to a body of knowledge that is severely underrepresented in the scientific literature, reading comprehension in secondary students. Chapter 1 examines the current state of literacy in the nation's public schools and the consequences that arise if students leave high school with inadequate reading skills. It discusses…

In an action research project, young male students from Sydney, Australia and Richmond, USA contributed to a collaborative writing blog. Both groups of students shared the same text with their class teachers, while using the medium of collaborative blogging, a process which was facilitated and managed by the teacher-librarian. Data was gathered…

This study examined whether having African-American middle school students write essays affirming their personal values improved their academic performance. The study analyzed data on about 175 African-American and 190 European-American students (the study's term for white students who are non-Latino and non-Asian) at a suburban middle school who…

This study investigated the use of reflective portfolios in science as a means to provide students a medium to develop a repertoire of study and self-regulation strategies. These self-regulation strategies can be accessed and utilized by students to engage in independent study and help to manage workloads from multiple teachers. The use of a…