Effective lesson planning promotes good teaching and the implementation of curriculum policy. Lesson planning enables teachers to determine appropriate lesson objectives, teaching and learning activities, and teaching methods. Effective lesson planning stimulates teachers to evaluate their instructional strategies and to reflect on how to improve…

This article provides and reflects on an original lesson plan for engaging high school, undergraduate, or graduate students in learning fundamental concepts of environmental ethics. Implementation of this lesson plan effectively promoted critical analysis, reflection, and communication of environmental ethics issues in a seminar for second-year…

This article is about designing and implementing PowerPoint-based interactive simulations for use in International Relations (IR) introductory undergraduate classes based on core pedagogical literature, models of human skill acquisition, and previous research on simulations in IR teaching. We argue that simulations can be usefully employed at the…

A literature review on approaches to a final course session reveals a dearth of attention to the issue. Options for last-day activities fall into three categories: professor-centered, activity-focused, and student-driven. Using the criterion that meaningful course closure calls for last-day activities that engage students in reflection not only…

Paying attention to the planning of lessons represents a crucial teaching task. This paper analyses teachers' framing of lesson objectives and their descriptions of how they would introduce particular mathematics topics. Connections between the objectives and the instructional strategies employed, were also studied. The study involved 75 South…

Learning from the practice of teaching teachers is a promising approach for mathematics teacher educators to attain the extensive knowledge and abilities needed for their roles. As mathematics teacher educators ourselves striving to develop across our professional lifespans, we used one such approach, known as a lesson experiment, to investigate…

Over the years, two new strands of research have evolved from the phenomenographic research tradition: the first concerns advancement of the variation theory of learning, whilst the second involves development of the learning study approach. In this paper, the conceptual frameworks of phenomenography, variation theory, and learning studies are…

Understanding the needs of plants, the function of their structures, and plant reproduction, is part of the National Science Education Content Standard C: Life science (NRC 1996). "A Framework for K-12 Science Education" (NRC 2012) states that by the end of grade 2, students should understand that plants have external parts, used to help…

This study was aimed to make a historical review by collecting and comparing teachers' opinions on target-behaviors/learning-objectives outcomes, content, plans, activities, practices and assessment of the Ministry of National Education (MoNE), Turkey 2002, 2006, and 2013 preschool education curricula (PEC) in six categories. The sample group of…

Pre-service teachers need to develop habits of mind that allow them to grow as new teachers. This article describes an elementary mathematics methods course in which teaching as an experiment was used a framework for pre-service teachers to participate in action research by developing learning goals, observing and analyzing student thinking,…

This qualitative single case study on backward design lesson planning experiences of teachers in a professional learning community focused on gaining a better understanding of collaborative planning of standards-based learning intentions, success criteria, assessments, and activities as performed by four participants meeting daily in one high…

Curriculum Weaving uses multi-layered goal planning designed to activate the students' prior knowledge, connect the student to student competencies and encourage them to engage in professionally-based, project management activities that will cultivate effective professional in the field classroom teacher. The focus of weaving these elements…

This paper explores the role that technology can play in engaging pre-service teachers with the iterative, "messy" nature of model-based inquiry. Over the course of 5 weeks, 11 pre-service teachers worked in groups to construct models of diffusion using a computational animation and simulation toolkit, and designed lesson plans for the…

Within the phenomenographic research tradition, the "object of learning" depicts the capability that is to be learned by the learner. It has been argued that the object of learning cannot be fully known in advance since what is to be learned depends on the learners as well as on the content taught. The object of learning and its nature…

Considering the challenges associated with adolescent obesity and the need for innovative and meaningful physical education curricula, the authors of this article decided to create a new sport education role to help students learn about the fundamental nutritional concepts and practices that contribute to a healthy and active lifestyle. The new…