These dynamic literature-based activities will help teachers energize the entire social studies curriculum and implement national (and state) standards. The author presents hundreds of "hands-on, minds-on" projects that actively engage students in positive learning experiences. Each of the 62 units offers book summaries, social studies…

In this article, the authors were asked by the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes to teach a one-week, three-credit-hour course in American Indian literatures to a group of mostly Cheyenne and Arapaho students in El Reno, Oklahoma, in association with Redlands Community College. Though they knew there would be grueling eight-hour days in the classroom,…

This article describes a portion of a long-term action-research project investigating the teaching of the science of transportation to high school students using the case study or experiential method. Other aspects integrated with the project-oriented study are the use of Constructivist theory, the Socratic Method, and the incorporation of…

This study focuses on some Iranian high school mathematics teachers' beliefs about the nature of mathematics, its teaching and learning within two theoretical frameworks, Absolutist Traditional Beliefs and Constructivist Non-Traditional Beliefs. Almost 100 high school mathematics teachers in district 1 of education department of Tehran filled out…

A group of science students self-identifying as gay or queer have only talked of their sexuality and gender feelings, and their experiences within higher education, on the completion of their studies. The reasons for their alienation from, and further marginalisation by the queer discourse are discussed. These include the stereotyping of gay…

The present studies were conducted to investigate students' conceptions of distinct constructivist assumptions. To that end, a questionnaire was developed containing statements about four constructivist assumptions: The importance of knowledge construction, cooperative learning, self-regulation, and the use of authentic problems together with…

The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize the current empirical literature on cross-cultural evaluation in Aboriginal communities, and to begin to address the recognized lack of critically engaged discussion about research on culturally competent evaluation. The term "Aboriginal" in this document refers to First Nations,…

The authors report on an interpretive case study that investigated how three elementary teachers summatively assessed their own students' written work over a three and one-half month period. Their collaborative assessment sessions reflected their ongoing routines that created productive social spaces that sowed the seeds for transformational adult…

This article describes the process of implementing a museum experience into the course content of a literacy methods course. A museum workshop was designed to help graduate students better understand the concept of literacy as a language-based learning process that builds on and extends each child's understanding of the world. Framed by relevant…

The idea of active learning was first introduced to kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong in 1981 when they received their in-service teacher education. In a two-year, school-based project, 60 teachers in five schools were asked to create collaborative videos about models of good practices after sharing "effective" teaching episodes with…

Much has been written about the promise of online learning environments for higher education, and there is a rapidly growing body of research examining the nature of learning and interaction in such courses. This article presents a discourse analysis of an interactive, text-based, online, graduate education course, designed and taught according to…

Entertainment media is a part of everyday life for most adults, including adult educators. This paper reports on a mixed method study, informed by social constructivism and critical media literacy, exploring US adult educators' consumption of entertainment media, how it affects their thinking about group identities, and how they draw on it in…

I define the "literacy autobiography" as a reflective, first-person account of one's development as a writing being. In this article I share a classroom practice that invited language learners to consider and compose their literacy autobiographies (LA). The context was a university credit English as a second language (ESL) classroom. The purposes…

The name of Zoltan P. Dienes (1916- ) stands with those of Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner, Edward Begle, and Robert Davis as a legendary figure whose work left a lasting impression on the field of mathematics education. Dienes' name is synonymous with the multibase blocks that he invented for the teaching of place value. Among numerous other things,…

We describe research carried out with a prospective secondary biology teacher, whom we shall call Miguel. The teacher's conceptions of the nature of science and of learning and teaching science were analyzed and compared with his classroom practice when teaching science lessons. The data gathering procedures were interviews analyzed by means of…