Reciprocal teaching is an instructional approach designed to increase students' reading comprehension at all grade levels and in all subject areas. Students are taught cognitive strategies that help them construct meaning from text and simultaneously monitor their reading comprehension. This Information Capsule summarizes reciprocal teaching's…

Vocabulary is a pivotal component of a student's background knowledge, and the research indicates that vocabulary instruction can be an effective means for increasing it. This booklet describes the positive outcomes that result when a school- or district-wide vocabulary program is strategically developed and intentionally implemented. The…

This article looks at Year 9 (age 13) ESL learners in a secondary school in Hong Kong producing--with minimal input and support from their teachers--their own story books, these being the final task outcome in a series of lessons focusing on creativity. Over a period of two months, as an integral part of their ESL lessons, groups of students…

Designing effective professional development experiences for technology-enhanced inquiry instruction is the goal of the Technology Enhanced Learning in Science (TELS) NSF funded Center for Learning and Teaching. In order to provide this type of support to a large number of teachers, we devised a "targeted professional development approach."…

Christine Greenhow, J. D. Walker, Dan Donnelly, and Brad Cohen describe the implementation and evaluation of the University of Minnesota's Fair Use Analysis (FUA) tool, an interactive online application intended to educate users and foster defensible fair use practice in accordance with copyright law by guiding users through a robust,…

As a significant step in the consolidation of the importance of technology in education, the Flemish Government recently (September 2007) introduced a formal technology curriculum for schools. This compulsory curriculum replaces already existing but non-binding technology guidelines and is an important action in the Flemish policy of educational…

Guidelines are offered regarding use of Teaching Children Self Control, a curriculum combining affective and cognitive tasks. Implementation and organizational approaches are discussed along with suggestions for developing a management system and deciding on mode for presentation (theme or subject teaching). Research on the curriculum's…

This paper presents a study of the experiences of a group of teacher educators during the 2006-2007 academic year, when they participated in a project to try out and implement digital individual development planning (which in Swedish is digital "Individuella Utvecklings-Planer" or IUP) in a teacher education faculty at a Swedish…

Math experts developed Formative Assessment Lessons that teachers can incorporate throughout the year's curriculum. Both tools target the "instructional core." A study by Research for Action (RFA) examining the first year of piloting the Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) and Math Design Collaborative (MDC) tools (2010-11) found…

Classrooms across the country are discovering the power of service-learning--the ideal way to help students develop social and academic skills while giving back to their community. Now for the first time, there's a practical how-to guide on using serving-learning to promote inclusion and differentiate instruction for students with and without…

Service learning is an effective instructional strategy in preservice teacher education programs for engaging students more actively in the learning process. In spite of the extensive studies on service learning in teacher education programs and courses, few studies are devoted to investigating the implementation of service learning in special…

This paper reports on the approaches undertaken to support the development of teachers' uses of interactive whiteboards in the Primary Schools Whiteboard Expansion project. Mixed methods were used to identify practices and staff perceptions about the extent and impact of professional development through surveys (initially from 528 schools),…

In 2008 the University of Melbourne began implementation of the Melbourne Model, its new vision for higher education in Australia. Six broad undergraduate university degrees have been introduced and graduate schools created. Students may now progress from an undergraduate generalist degree, with major, to a professional Masters. Alternatively,…

Nine New Zealand secondary schools participated in the OtagoNet project, using videoconferencing technologies to deliver courses to multiple sites. This paper reports findings from a study conducted between 2001 and 2004 to evaluate the effectiveness of OtagoNet. It was found that videoconferencing technology had a significant impact on pedagogy…

Rapid advances in educational and information communications technology (ICT) have encouraged some educators to move beyond traditional face to face and distance education correspondence modes toward a rich, technology mediated e-learning environment. Ready access to multimedia at the desktop has provided the opportunity for educators to develop…