The use of student achievement data to improve teaching and learning is a national concern driven by accountability requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. Research studies that examine how schools use student achievement data document the need for teachers to connect data to instructional practices. Bruner's social constructivist…

A phenomenological study was conducted to gather the essence of professional counselors' experiences regarding their pursuit of professional licensure in a Southeastern state. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six females via the telephone. Interviews were recorded and transcribed for analysis. Findings indicate that these individuals…

International assessment data indicate American students are not competing with their counterparts in other countries. The mathematics curriculum and pedagogy are not preparing students to compete in a global economy. This study compared student achievement using sixth grade mathematics results from the Illinois Standards Achievement Test.…

This paper presents a review of Jane McGonigal's book, "Reality is broken" (Reality is broken: why games make us better and how they can change the world. Penguin Press, New York, 2011). As the book subtitle suggests it is a book about "why games make us better and how they can change the world", written by a specialist in computer game design. I…

The legacy and sustainability of a university education requires student independence and ownership of learning. Adopting a student-centred constructivist approach to teaching and learning allows students to develop a web of self-constructed, interconnected understanding, and supports their development into lifelong learners. The efficacy of this…

The purpose of this research is threefold: (1) to identify the difficulties that Grade 10 students in a Lebanese school have that hinder their conceptual understanding at the micro-macro-symbolic interface in chemistry, (2) to investigate the effect of a macro-micro-symbolic teaching approach on students' relational understanding of chemical…

Ability to evaluate information is a critical component of information literacy. This article provides strategies for engaging students in learning about information evaluation in the contexts of the scientific publication cycle and communication in the digital age. Also included are recent findings regarding undergraduate student research…

A view of human functioning is presented in which functioning is seen as integrating head and heart, emotion and reason, in a process by which people are constantly making sense of their lived emotional experience to form narratives of told experience. Because much of the processing involved in the generation of emotional experience occurs…

Understanding the interactions between people, computer-mediated communication, and online life requires that researchers appropriate a set of methodological tools that would be best suited for capturing and analyzing the phenomenon. However, these tools are not limited to relevant technological forms of data collections and analysis programs; it…

This article reports research into online learning in a part-time postgraduate programme in clinical education, which is delivered by means of supported online learning. The aim of this study is to obtain insights into the perceptions and experiences of tutors and students regarding the role of the tutor within the context of the online learning…

This study compared the affordances of 4 multimedia learning environments for specific learning processes. The environments covered the same domain but used different instructional approaches: (a) hypermedia learning, (b) observational learning, (c) self-explanation-based learning, and (d) inquiry learning. Although they all promote an active…

If our chosen aim in science education is to be inclusive and to improve students' learning achievements, then we must identify teaching methodologies that are appropriate for teaching and learning specific knowledge. Karagiorgi and Symeo (2005) remind us that instructional designers are thus challenged to translate the philosophy of…

The purpose of this article is to present the results of a multi-site case study designed to investigate students' experiences as participants in four week-long immersion programs (New York City, Peru, the Czech Republic, Chicago). Results highlight the significance of the context of the trips and specific characteristics of the trip (e.g.,…

This article examines major unresolved challenges in the assessment of pre-K-grade 12 multilingual students in US public schools. The ethnic educator approach advocates for a change of paradigms in assessment, one that abandons the medical model to incorporate socio-constructivist theoretical perspectives and pluralistic and progressive social…

In this study we present an overview of the undergraduate blended Physics course that has been supported by the Moodle platform. The course that has been applied is a basic physics course for primary student teachers. The aim of Moodle is to create an online learning environment which helps students to have a virtual space where they can share…