This article describes the challenges beginning teachers face in schooling contexts that have become increasingly subject to direct political intervention. To tell the story it focuses on the experiences of five teachers in their first year of teaching in an urban jurisdiction in Australia, examining the ways in which they taught literacy, and…

The curriculum of each learning community at Duquesne University is integrated around a shared theme. The integrated classes equip students to articulate their biases in reference to the theme. The residual effect of the thematic communities is a byproduct of pedagogy informed by theory and embodied in service. The learning communities at Duquesne…

This study examined the mathematics teaching efficacy of traditional and non-traditional elementary pre-service teachers enrolled in a three-course, three-semester mathematics sequence. Self-efficacy scales were administered at the beginning of the three-course sequence and at the end. The three-course mathematics sequence was taught from a…

Background: Over the last 30 years, traditional skill-based game teaching models have gradually been supplemented by instruction under an inclusive banner of "Teaching Games for Understanding" (TGfU). This approach focuses on developing tactical understanding through modified games and a philosophy that places the learner rather than the…

This article is a report of a critical constructivist study of racial identity and performance among 13 Black, traditional-age students enrolled at three different colleges, two historically Black and one predominantly White. The study's approach understood identity to be socially constructed and reliant upon community affirmation and validation.…

This classroom activity is based on a constructivist learning design and engages students in physically constructing a karyotype of three mock patients. Students then diagnose the chromosomal aneuploidy based on the karyotype, list the symptoms associated with the disorder, and discuss the implications of the diagnosis. This activity is targeted…

In the Winter, 2015, issue of the "College Quarterly," Donovan McFarlane provided some guidelines for the use of case studies in college teaching based in part on his own experience and in part on the published literature. This was not the first time that case-based teaching was the focus of work in the "College Quarterly."…

The aim of this study is to compare the 5E learning model with traditional learning methods in terms of their effect on students' academic achievement, retention and attitude scores. In this context, the meta-analytic method known as the "analysis of analyses" was used and a review undertaken of the studies and theses (N = 14) executed…

A clearly articulated theoretical perspective on learning is essential for developing consistency among learning, pedagogy, and leadership and for planning and making adjustments to better serve students in all areas. Notwithstanding, few professional learning and school improvement approaches in pre-school through 12th grade (P-12) schools…

This article presents and discusses experiences from a research and development project where Norwegian student teachers were encouraged to bridge theory and practice by following a pupil's learning processes over time, and to write papers based on empirical data and relevant subject theory. The evaluations of the project received high ratings…

University lectures are increasingly recorded or reproduced and made available to students online. This paper aggregates and critically reviews the associated literature, thematically organised in response to four questions. In response to the first question--does student attendance decrease when online content is made available--research…

There is a dearth of literature on Access to Higher Education (AHE) tutors, which this paper addresses. Tutors play an important part in constructing emotional and academic support for students. Understanding their constructions of professional identity and their views of the students they teach helps to explain the learning environments they…

In recent years, researchers have become aware of the experiential grounding of scientific thought. Accordingly, research has shown that metaphorical mappings between experience-based source domains and abstract target domains are omnipresent in everyday and scientific language. The theory of conceptual metaphor explains these findings based on…

The main aim of this study was to determine the teaching practices of prospective high school physics teachers with respect to their preference for teaching as a traditionalist or as a constructivist. To study the beliefs of prospective high school physics teachers on this subject, firstly, the Teacher Belief Survey was administered to 135…

This paper contributes to the ongoing discourse on pedagogical practices in developing contexts. The argument is that in large mixed ability classes, learner centred pedagogy is not only faced with a myriad of challenges, but fails to cater for the range of learners. The paper provides a review of constructivist approaches and proposes pedagogical…