Students' reactions to the intersection between ongoing experiences in the university classroom and student teaching constitute the formative component of learning assessment called "self-assessment." Student reactions, captured via file cards and reflective journals, constituted evidence for final "self-evaluation," the summative component of…

This activity targets students' misconceptions about embryonic and adult stem cells while also addressing an important grades 9-12 science content standard. The authors designed the activity to provide students an opportunity to explore differences between embryonic and adult stem cells prior to formal explanation. The overarching goal of this…

The current study sought to examine the effectiveness of four teaching techniques (lecture, demonstrations, discussions, and in-class activities) in the classroom. As each technique offers different benefits to the instructor and students, each technique was expected to aid in a different depth of learning. The current findings indicated that each…

Strong evidence from recent brain research shows that the intentional teaching of science is crucial in early childhood. "Big Science for Growing Minds" describes a groundbreaking curriculum that invites readers to rethink science education through a set of unifying concepts or "big ideas." Using an integrated learning approach, the author shows…

This qualitative study aimed to reveal whether teachers' classroom practices overlap with their attitudes towards certain features of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) such as pair and group-work activities, fluency and accuracy, error correction and the role of the teacher. Before conducting an open-ended questionnaire with two teachers of…

As part of becoming scientifically literate, students should come to appreciate epistemic aspects of science. Little research has been conducted on elementary students' epistemological beliefs specific to science education. This study offers insights into third-grade students' epistemological beliefs while paying attention to the intersection of…

In this article, the authors describe a class activity that uses a combination of strategies to overcome obstacles students face when learning about the reproduction of inequality in everyday life. Based on Schwalbe et al.'s (2000) piece on "generic social processes," and following the idea of "making the strange familiar and the familiar…

In contrast to a focus on vertical learning experiences where the emphasis is on progression up a scale of complexity, this article explores the value of horizontal learning experiences. These aim to provide learners with a variety of opportunities and spaces to participate, thereby expanding the entry points for them into school science. The…

Harnessing insights from Brophy's (1999, 2008, 2010) notion of scaffolding students' appreciation of learning, this article tackles challenges to student engagement, especially among reluctant students, by exploring two classroom settings in which students' valuing of school content and activities supported their engagement and achievement. The…

This theory-to-practice article focuses on interdisciplinary classroom activities based on principles of collage in modern music, art, and poetry. A two-lesson sequence was designed for an inner-city Grade 4 and 5 general classroom of English language learners, where the unit was taught, assessed, and documented by the authors. Included in the…

Although scholars have long advocated the use of informational texts in the primary grades, gaps and inconsistencies in research have produced conflicting reports on how teachers used these texts in the primary curriculum, and how primary students dealt with them during instruction and on their own (e.g., Saul & Dieckman, 2005). Thus, to add…

At the college level, students often participate in introductory courses with large class enrollments that tend to produce many challenges to effective teaching and learning. Many teachers are concerned that this class environment fails to accommodate higher-level thinking and learning. I offer a brief rationale for why a student-response system…

Modern college English classroom has seen a gradual shift from teacher-dominated to student-centered one and therefore affective factors plays a crucial part of the bidirectional communication between teachers and students. This thesis attempts to investigate the roles teachers should perform at class and then give some advice of affective…

English as a tool of communication has been playing an important part in acquiring cultural, scientific and technical knowledge, for collecting worldwide information and carrying out international exchange and cooperation. Improving college students' oral English level has become more and more important. Based on Richard E. Mayer's theory of…

This research examines differential participation in three specific classroom literacy activities over an academic school and their relationship to progress on school-based measures of literacy progress in one urban kindergarten linguistically diverse classroom. Exploring the experiences of three kindergarten beginning English language learners…