McDougall found learning about Stephen and Matilda fascinating, was sure that her pupils would also and designed an enquiry to engage them in "the anarchy" of 1139-1153 AD. Pupils enjoyed exploring "the anarchy" and learning about it enhanced their knowledge and understanding of the medieval period considerably. However,…

Within the burgeoning literature concerning beginning teacher transition, professional development and learning several studies have unpacked the micropolitical context of the school. However, little is known about the micropolitical context of the staffroom, the place in which teachers spend the majority of their non-teaching school time. This…

The present research investigated whether real-world application exercises promoted students' abilities to spontaneously transfer statistical knowledge and to recognize the use of statistics in real-world contexts. Over the course of a semester of psychological statistics, two classes completed multiple application exercises designed to mimic…

In this article the authors specifically address the use of narratives in the form of analogies as an experiential learning activity. The use of analogies as an experiential learning tool in multicultural education can be helpful in a number of ways. Analogies provide an alternative tool for processing multicultural topics with students who have…

A teacher's belief plays a significant role in the quality of teaching mathematics. In a fictive way, the researcher changed his role from a researcher to a research participant in an imaginative interview. His interior other (David) interviewed him as a researcher. A single interview session was held lasting for about three hours. The…

At some stage when planning, teachers make decisions about the mathematics tasks they will pose and how they will structure lessons. It seems, though, that these decisions are complex, and that this complexity has been underestimated by curriculum developers and teacher educators. The following is a report of data collection that simulated some of…

We introduce an exercise designed to make Marx's theory of alienated labor accessible to students in a Sociology of Work class. Through a role-playing activity where students create and sell goods under conditions of both alienated and nonalienated labor, students actually experience the different material and social consequences of these…

Teachers and researchers have known for decades that the use of storybooks can have a positive impact on students' experiences with mathematics. This article describes how first graders in an urban public school actively engage with mathematics by using the story "Bean Thirteen" as a context for developing number sense. This…

This paper documents the progress of eight middle schools, four from one school district, and four from another that were engaged in the process of implementing Professional Learning Community (PLC) concepts. The descriptive study used quantitative and qualitative information gathered in a standardized, open-ended interview with the teachers and…

Not only is science perceived by some as a hard-to-teach subject, but there are certain topics that all teachers regard as notoriously hard to teach. While their natural inclination may be to eliminate some of the details, teachers have to be careful not to water down the curriculum. How do they share the complexity of the natural world without…

The main purpose of this research was to study how the instructiveness of the letter, one of the writing to learn activities; changes according to the person to whom it is written (the addressee). The document analysis method was used in this qualitative study. Since documents are very important information sources used effectively in qualitative…

I present a framework for ecology and evolution laboratory exercises using artificial caterpillars made from modeling clay. Students generate and test hypotheses about predation rates on caterpillars that differ in appearance or "behavior" to understand how natural selection by predators shapes distribution and physical characteristics of…

Sociology majors learn that sociological theory is foundational to our field; it frames the way we look at the world and provides guiding questions for our social inquiry. But sociology instructors know that teaching theory is a challenge. A number of activities have been created to engage students in sociological theory courses. This note…

This column presents an improvisation game designed to be played by any two musicians from beginner through professional skill level. The author argues that two aspects are critical for success: one, an understanding of the creative power of limits; and, two, the importance of framing the activity as a game. The game, based on the limit of the…

The study examined two primary teachers' professional learning and joint knowledge construction in the context of co-teaching. The teachers narrated their learning as a collaborative process with serendipitous origins. Shared knowledge construction was crucial in the learning process, as was implementing the resulting new ideas in practice. It is…