The present study focuses on comparing the impact of role assignment and cross-age peer tutors on students' level of knowledge construction in 15 asynchronous discussion groups of nine students each in a first-year university course (N=135). Content analysis was applied to analyse the level of knowledge construction in students' online postings.…

This article draws on developing theory regarding assessment and marking to explore the impact of staff values regarding widening participation on grading decisions. It reports on an innovative creative arts module delivered for students with complex disabilities. Data collection included observation of teaching, interviews with staff, students…

Managing fish resources in the ocean, known as marine fisheries management, often involves disagreement among many groups of people: commercial fishers, recreational anglers, national and local conservationists, and several branches of government. While managing marine fisheries in federal waters, the federal government must rebuild marine fish…

Four first-grade teachers used discussion prompts to encourage thinking about and responding to text in different ways. This article describes how the teachers introduced the prompts and provides examples of how the prompts were integrated into classroom activities. Teachers found that using the prompts was an effective way to initiate and…

A total of 90 small-group, free-flowing, peer-led discussions were analyzed to investigate teacher influence on fourth-grade children's argument construction. Teacher-child and child-child interactions were examined for recurrent patterns. A number of teacher-child discussion moves were clustered into three main categories: (a) prompting for and…

"We can never be sure that there is not some wild, untamed piece of mathematics ready to spring out on us... This is what keeps mathematics enchanting." This is how Jim Neyland, one of the contributing authors to this book, describes mathematics. His enthusiasm and energy are echoed throughout by many of the other writers. This is a book to…

Professional development with proven positive effects on vocabulary instruction and student achievement: that's what reading teachers are looking for, and that's what the Teacher Study Group (TSG) model delivers. With the nine complete TSG sessions in this book, K-8 teachers will form dynamic in-school learning groups with their fellow educators…

Introduction: Report of a study to discover and describe job vacancies for information professionals available online at specific sites and discussion lists between January 2005 and February 2008. Method: The study uses Bardin's content analysis technique and the following analysis criteria: information source, institutional type, professional…

Modelled Discussions About Science (MoDAS), where adults talk together about scientific ideas, procedures and applications, were devised to model and improve the quality of pupils' discussions. Two examples from one of the project schools are examined to see if these aims were fulfilled and to comment on examples of cognitive and social aspects of…

Russia is witnessing an unprecedented explosion of interest in its history. This is entirely understandable. In the Russians' desire to understand the profound changes going on in different areas of their lives they are attempting to look at the past with new eyes, because the past has merged with the present and to a large extent determines its…

Expectations about how assessment takes place in schools rarely stand still. Summative and periodic assessments continue to have their traditional place in tracking pupil progress. Using assessment data for school accountability is a more recent phenomenon. Now the development of APP (Assessing Pupils' Progress) programmes in schools in England…

For generations of educators who grew up on the printed word (as compared to the electronic one), books remain an enjoyable activity that can contribute to knowledge building for professional educators with wide-ranging responsibilities. Yet they have broader value beyond personal consumption. In many school districts throughout the country, books…

Teaching anxiety is prevalent among professors. However, there is little research examining the relationship between personality and teaching anxiety in this population. The current study examines how different types of in-class behaviour are related to teaching anxiety and personality. Higher neuroticism and lower extraversion are related to…

Discussions are important classroom tools--and those that focus on science in society have the potential to interest and engage students. However, a conversation can quickly veer out of control if expectations are not clearly set by the teacher and if the discussion is not structured appropriately. This article describes the use of Socratic…

Although text-based discussions are considered by many literacy researchers and educators to be optimal contexts for teaching students how to comprehend text, a discussion is an ill-structured instructional space with complicated demands. A challenge for teacher educators is to acknowledge this complexity and provide ways for teachers to learn how…