As students engage in pre-service teacher (PT) activities, they take a number of courses that help prepare them to teach in schools. During that time, they must also form their own understanding of what teaching and learning means for them (Kroll, 2004). In many cases, this can conflict with their view of teaching as a command approach to…

This article will map the process of collaborative professional enquiry in an attempt to make sense of the structural elements evident in creating a "Community of Collaborative Professional Enquiry" (CCPE). At the heart of each CCPE examined was a collaborative, improvement-focused intervention that was designed and implemented by…

The present study aimed to evaluate whether a chemistry laboratory course called "Laboratory Experiments in Science Education" based on constructivist instruction accompanied with concept mapping enhanced pre-service chemistry teachers' conceptual understanding. Data were collected from five pre-service chemistry teachers at a university…

Drawing upon my critical appropriation of Alasdair MacIntyre's account of the rationality of traditions, I undertake to explain and demonstrate how the competing conceptual frameworks of distinct traditions of educational inquiry and practice can be assessed through dialectical argument. To illustrate the "method" of dialectic, I argue that the…

The call for reforms in science education has been ongoing for a century, with new movements and approaches continuously reshaping the identity and values of the discipline. The HPS movement has an equally long history and taken part in the debates defining its purpose and revising curriculum. Its limited success, however, is due not only to…

This qualitative constructivist research study employed a unique professional case-based pedagogy to investigate how concurrent Education undergraduate students made sense of the complex dilemmas inherent in the cases and in particular, the factors that influenced their critical thinking processes. The paper identifies three core categories that…

In this rejoinder to Bryan Brown and John Reveles, we highlight the facts that (a) sociocultural theories of learning do not go far enough because they fail to address a number of issues and (b) we require concepts such as power and positionality to understand science learning.

The goal of this study was to increase our understanding of the learning-oriented verbal interactions taking place between students during the problem-based learning (PBL) cycle. The verbal interactions of one PBL group of five students throughout an entire PBL cycle were recorded in this data-intensive case study. The verbatim transcript…

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for teaching and learning are continually changing and being replaced by the newest "must have" technologies, so how valuable are skills-based technology courses in the long-term to pre-service teachers? While pre-service teachers need to be competent and confident users of technology…

I present here the results of a qualitative research study on the impact of a curriculum that connects learning events in Spanish and English in authentic communicative performances during its first year of use in a private school in a medium-size Colombian city. I did discourse analysis of interviews with participating teachers and class…

"Literacy Achievement and Diversity" is the indispensable collection to the wisdom of respected literacy researcher Kathy Au. In this timely book, Au addresses the question of what educators can do to close the literacy achievement gap. She begins by outlining theory and research and then provides practical strategies to help teachers improve the…

Drawing from 30 years of teaching and professional development experience, this book offers a roadmap for using children's literature to provide authentic learning. Featuring a "storyteller's voice," each chapter includes a case study about how a particular fiction or nonfiction work can be used in an early childhood classroom; a series of…

This ethnographic study utilized the theoretical frameworks of constructivism, cognitivism, and socio-cultural theories to examine how professional learning communities influenced the professional development of mathematics teacher knowledge and student achievement. This study sought to comprehend and interpret the behaviors, beliefs and values of…

Federal Title I funding has been allocated to districts since 1965 in an effort to provide schools with a high population of identified low socioeconomic students with additional resources to close the achievement gap. The basis for this study was to ascertain whether the Title I funding that schools received was having a positive impact on…

This study grounded in constructivist theory and the public health literature investigated Native American children's knowledge related to physical activity and healthy behavior concepts. Learning tends to be more meaningful and relevant when teachers take into consideration the students' knowledge and experiences. Therefore it is important to…