This article discusses activities carried out in the virtual world of Second Life (SL) as part of a compulsory class in the first year of an undergraduate programme. The paper identifies the contribution of SL to the students' learning environment and an Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) approach to programme design. The reasons for taking an IBL…

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine teaching and learning in virtual worlds such as "Second Life" (SL). This research is designed to address the following questions: What are the pedagogical practices in virtual worlds? What are the strengths and weaknesses of these practices? How do these practices change at different course levels?…

In this paper, we are concerned with the role of both teachers and students' questioning in classroom interaction. Bearing in mind that the current guidelines point out to student centred teaching, our aim is to analyse and characterise the questioning patterns of contemporary secondary science classes and compare them to the questioning profiles…

This paper examines the extension of active learning pedagogical practices familiar in preschool settings to the first class of primary school. Policy and practice guidance in the UK is advocating the benefits of experiential learning as a way of engaging young children as they move into primary school but for teachers this means a move to new…

Although there is a need for continued pedagogical advancement in science undergraduate education, what is needed more urgently is more widespread adaptation of pedagogical practices that research has already shown to promote learning. Those practices include interactive engagement pedagogies such as active learning and inquiry-based learning. The…

Small-group learning in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines has been widely studied, and it is clear that this method offers many benefits to students. Less attention has been paid to the ways in which small learning groups differ from one another, and how these differences may affect student learning and…

This study surveyed post-secondary instructors in 15 countries regarding their experiences using the virtual world Second Life as a teaching tool. Qualitative analysis of responses to open-ended questions suggests that Second Life offers a great deal of potential in realizing Grabinger and Dunlap's (2000) attributes of a rich environment for…

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered learning model used heavily in the natural sciences. By supplying students with contextualized problems and stopping short of handing them the tools to solve the problems, instructors take on the role of facilitator rather than expert. Use of PBL in political science, and more generally the social…

This article describes the Dim Sum and Chinese Restaurant Project undertaken by 6-year-old kindergarten children in Hong Kong. The article discusses the importance of listening, observing, and documenting children's actions to meet their needs and interests. The kindergarten program that participated in this project is a nonprofit kindergarten…

Microteaching Lesson Study [MLS] combines elements of Japanese lesson study and microteaching. A case study of MLS was conducted with 18 prospective teachers in an initial course on learning to teach. Various data sources (i.e., pre- and post-lesson plans, MLS lesson plans, videotaped lessons, transcripts of group discussions, observation field…

This study examined the content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) constructed by a group of 24 pre-service elementary teacher participants as they learned about the moon's phases, inquiry learning, and use of the Internet message boards as a teaching tool as a part of their science teaching methods course. The MOON Project (More…

The article reports phase 2 of a two-year study, dubbed the Smart Information Use project, the focus of which was appropriate seeking and use of information by students at various stages of their high school education, along with the avoidance of plagiarism. In four Australian high schools, teacher librarians and classroom teachers developed and…

Nowadays, there are lots of digital resources available to teachers. Tools such as Teachers' Domain, an online digital library (see "On the web"); interactive whiteboards; computer projection devices; laptop carts; and robust wireless internet services make it easy for teachers to use technology in the classroom. In fact, in one…

This paper describes a series of experiential educational exercises developed to better engage and more effectively educate master degree students in the necessary foundation skills that comprise a true scholar. It was developed from the atmosphere of viewing the initial disengagement of my students while at the same time recalling, as a student,…

This qualitative study examines an art lesson in a multiage inquiry-based charter school. The arts curriculum focused on democratic process, dialogical interaction, aesthetic and imaginative understanding, and visual culture art education. Questions considered in the research were: Within an inquiry-based setting what might an art lesson look…