Informal "teacher talk" about students is ubiquitous, but it remains largely unexamined. This study critically examines casual, everyday teacher discourse about students perceived to be racially or culturally "different." Data were collected through participants' journal entries, group discussion, and interviews. Findings…

This article discusses the development of the online spaces that were used to create a learning framework: a student-centred framework that combined face-to-face teaching with online social and participatory media. The author, as part of her Doctoral research study, used action research as a mechanism for continual improvement as she redesigned…

The purpose of this study was to explore how critical and reflective thinking about race and culture evolved and manifested in online threaded discussions among pre-service teachers during a required Multicultural Education course. Because of the ubiquitous presence of computer-mediated forms of communication, research has increased in recent…

For academics who administer, design, and develop courses for online graduate programs, emphasis is placed on creating student-centered experiences that are grounded in scholarly learning and instructional theory using state-of-the art technology. This study sought to identify discussion strategies that would enhance the student learning…

Science education reform calls for learners to be engaged in hand-on, minds-on activities related to science. As a part of this reform effort, learners are encouraged to use writing as a means of documenting their work and developing their understandings. This qualitative case study employed the Conceptual Change Perspective and Sociocultural…

This dissertation examines the participation of one Chinese teacher and five 13 to 15 year-old Chinese heritage students in a classroom in a Chinese community school during group discussions about narrative texts. In this study, the teacher used Collaborative Reasoning (CR) (Anderson, et al., 2001) to help the Chinese heritage students extend…

This paper describes the "practice architectures"; and "ecologies of practice" of LS (lesson study) in an Indonesian private elementary school. It aims at drawing on LS as a form of professional learning from the perspective of contemporary practice theory (Kemmis, Wilkinson, Hardy, & Edwards-Groves, 2009; Kemmis, 2009a,…

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of Walton, Reed, and Macagno's (2008) dialectical framework on middle school students' historical discussions and written arguments. To do this,151 middle school students from six classrooms were randomly assigned to one of two conditions and asked to participate in a three-week…

This study compared the change in counseling student's self-efficacy and skill related to suicide assessment and intervention through the use of a novel intervention-oriented evaluation method, evaluation focused discussion groups, in an experimental embedded mixed methods design. An innovation counselor pedagogical tool, Suicide Risk Assessment…

This article examines the experiences of seven teacher educators who met monthly over one academic year to engage in a collaborative self-study focused on exploring the text, "Developing a Pedagogy of Teacher Education: Understanding Teaching and Learning about Teaching." Through reflective discussion focused on relating the text to our…

Much has changed for today's language learners. The people, artifacts, and popular culture of a target language are often highly accessible to language learners and teachers, despite geographical barriers. This accessibility, of course, is possible through mass media and electronic forms of communication. This is phenomenal. But with this…

In this essay, the author explores the notion that the focus of learning in classrooms and schools extends beyond the learning of individuals to create a collective body of knowledge that is larger than what any one person knows. This idea was examined in a collaboration between Project Zero researchers and educators from the municipal preschools…

Advances in technology are having a profound impact on distance education as online learning is becoming a preferred educational option. Within these online learning experiences, the asynchronous online discussion has evolved into one of the most commonly used communication tools. However, a lack of cognitive processing and interaction in the…

The paper considers theoretical notions of power in relation to student voice. As an action-oriented practice some aspects of student voice have received little theorisation as yet. This paper aims to contribute to a growing body of work on student voice which is addressing its current theoretical under-elaboration. It does so by concentrating on…

Children and their parents--it is an ancient theme, a timeless attempt to unravel the mystery of the parent and the mystery of the child understanding itself as a distinct person apart, yet very much a part of the mother and father. Over the years, the author has had success teaching a unit on the father/child theme for various second-year…