There is an educational disconnect between students' individual backgrounds and the instruction that they traditionally receive in school (Darling-Hammond 3). This division is even more severe for black, Latino/Latina, and economically underprivileged students, who often lack the support, experience, or resources to fully engage in…

Helping students become responsible for their own learning is an incredibly challenging task since it requires transforming their previous, passive "sit-and-get" learning style into a go-and-get orientation. The authors present a collection of eight schools that offer valuable examples of how to develop students as self-directed…

The relationship between the structure and function of proteins is an important area in biochemistry. Pupils studying A-level Biology are introduced to the four levels of protein structure (primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary) and how these can be used to describe the progressive folding of a chain of amino acid residues to a final,…

This paper presents a methodology developed by members of the Research Centre for Learning and Teaching (RCfLAT) to collaborate with university teaching colleagues to produce theoretically- and pedagogically-based case studies of innovations in teaching and learning. The Equal Acclaim for Teaching Excellence (EquATE) project investigates…

The Future Voices in Public Services column is a forum for students in graduate library and information science programs to discuss key issues they see in academic library public services, to envision what they feel librarians in public service have to offer to academia, to tell of their visions for the profession, or to tell of research that is…

After 10 years of teaching art in public schools, Carrie Nordlund arrived at a state of query that set in motion her search for alternative approaches to learning. As she was feeling stifled in a seemingly sterile education institution with its overdependence on and pedagogy aimed at standardized tests, she came across a reference to Waldorf…

The "College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: State Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History" will soon be released. The C3 Framework was developed to serve two audiences: for states to upgrade their state social studies standards, and for…

Recently, with the development of more powerful and accurate computational tools, the inclusion of new didactic materials in the classroom is known to have increased. However, the form in which these materials can be used to enhance the learning process is still under debate. Many different methodologies have been suggested for constructing new…

Elementary teachers are criticized for failing to incorporate meaningful science instruction in their classrooms or avoiding science instruction altogether. The lack of adequate science instruction in elementary schools is partially attributed to teacher candidates' anxiety, poor content and pedagogical preparation, and low science teaching…

A series of studies in a mature multimodal composing project demonstrates that through digital video (DV) composing about literature, diverse students, including many who struggled in school, learned new ways of engaging literature, performing meaning, and thinking symbolically through multimodal translations of the text. Students' focus in these…

This edited volume presents innovative current research in the field of Science Education. The chapter's deal with a wide variety of topics and research approaches, conducted in a range of contexts and settings. Together they make a strong contribution to knowledge on science teaching and learning. The book consists of selected presentations from…

Despite massive funding from the Australian government, the literacy achievement of Australian Indigenous children remains significantly lower than for non-Indigenous. With the aim of identifying innovative ways to improve Indigenous children's literacy achievement, this study explored the social practices surrounding everyday mobile phone use by…

This column features essays written by current middle school and high school teachers, media specialists, librarians, literacy coaches, curriculum specialists, administrators, preservice teachers, teacher educators, and adolescent and adult learners. They highlight diverse perspectives on teaching and/or learning with literacies to inspire reader…

Business students beginning their careers find that they must innovate to solve nebulous problems, work in interdisciplinary groups and environments, and effectively communicate their knowledge to colleagues and clients with diverse backgrounds. Addressing this, researchers devised a flipped classroom cross-disciplinary (CD) client-based project…

The inclusion of the Knowledge about Language strand in the recently introduced Australian Curriculum: English (AC:E) is both promising and challenging. For the first time, students across primary and secondary years of schooling are expected to develop "a coherent, dynamic, and evolving body of knowledge about the English language and how it…