Opportunities for play and self-initiated activity, considered to be an important part of children's learning in early childhood settings, diminish as children progress into school. Previous studies suggest that losing time for play/self-initiated activity can impact negatively on children's attitudes to school learning. This article discusses the…

To fully consider the potential of informational texts to serve as mentor texts in the elementary classroom, the authors propose an inquiry about the intersections among the author's intentions, instructional contexts, a teacher's approaches, and students' responses to informational texts when contemplating the roles these texts might serve. In…

Purpose: This qualitative study explored the implementation of Lesson Study, a kind of teacher-directed and bottom-up approach of the Japanese model of teacher professional development in the Malaysian education context. It seeks to answer the question of how implementation of lesson study as an innovative professional development model among…

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the lived experience of teachers from one middle school in East China who implemented project-based learning (PBL) in their classes. A sample of 22 grade 6 and 7 teachers participated in this research between September 2008 and June 2010. Data were observation, transcripts of semi-structural…

The existing literature on indicators of an optimal learning environment for high-ability students frequently discusses the concept of challenge. It is, however, not clear what, precisely, constitutes appropriate challenge for these students. In this study, the authors examined an undergraduate honours course, Advanced Cell Biology, which has…

The main aim of this study was to examine how a group of elementary students perceived their engagement in a project-based science intervention investigating the water quality of a local lake. The students collaborated with a scientist to conduct various experiments and used handheld computers to collect and analyze data in order to examine the…