The standardised and instrumental view of teaching overshadows the unintentional spontaneous, unpredictable aspects of teaching captured by the notion of "pedagogical tact." Pedagogical tact is grounded in teacher-pupil relations involving trust and care. This article illustrates how pedagogical tact can be used as an analytical tool in…

Teachers' diagnostic competences are essential with respect to student achievement, classroom assessment, and instructional quality. Important components of diagnostic competences are teachers' professional knowledge including content knowledge (CK), pedagogical knowledge (PK), and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), their diagnostic activities…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how middle school general and special education teachers in the Northeastern region of the U.S. describe their collaboration in the designing and evaluating of IEP services for students with disabilities. It was not known how middle school general and special education teachers…

The study investigated the relationship between student proficiency on The Writing Revolution (TWR) evaluative scales and student performance on the English Language Arts Regents Exam (ELA Regents Exam). The participants (n = 54) were enrolled in an 11th grade English Language Arts Regents Preparatory class in a small urban New York City High…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how a chemistry teacher's questions influence the classroom discourse. It presents a fine-grained analysis of the rich variety of one teacher's questions and the roles they play in an upper secondary chemistry classroom. The study identifies six different functions for the teacher's questions:…

The main goal of this research study was to develop and validate a three-tier diagnostic test to determine pre-service teachers' (PSTs) conceptual knowledge of the water cycle. For a three-tier diagnostic test, the first tier assesses content knowledge; in the second tier, a reason is selected for the content answer; and the third tier allows…

Adapting support contingently to student needs by first diagnosing their current understanding, that is, scaffolding, is considered a key aspect of excellent teaching. The use of classroom scaffolding is rare, however. We therefore investigated the benefits to teachers of a professional development program that was based upon a model of contingent…

The basis for individual students' instructional support by teachers is an individual diagnosis of one's learning advances and difficulties. Even though sophisticated diagnostic tools exist, it remains an open question how diagnosis and learning can be merged into a consistent pedagogical method to support both teachers and students with feedback…

Promoting the development of students' scientific inquiry capabilities is a major learning objective in science education. As a result, teachers require effective assessment approaches to evaluate students' scientific inquiry-related performance. Teachers must also be able to offer appropriate supplementary instructions, as needed, to students.…