English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' language use in 3-D virtual environments is a vibrant avenue that still deserves more research attention in the field of CALL. To contribute research and pedagogical implications to the current Second Life (SL) literature, this study aims to examine EFL adult learners' use of communication strategies…

Improving teacher preparation is critical to long-term improvement in teacher quality. More than 200,000 new teachers enter classrooms each year. Increasing student enrollment, the retirement of baby boom generation teachers, and high attrition in their first five years (between 40 and 50 percent of new teachers leave the profession) have…

Teacher education as a field of study has steadily grown since the press for an identifiable knowledge base first appeared in the 1970s. Almost simultaneously, calls for teacher education reform abounded and have, for more than 40 years, existed alongside the development of research in teacher education. However, these longstanding teacher…

The current teacher workforce is younger, less experienced, more likely to turnover, and more diverse in preparation experiences than the workforce of two decades ago. Research shows that inexperienced teachers are less effective, but we know little about the effectiveness of teachers with different types of preparation. In this study, we classify…

As English learners face the double demands of building knowledge of a second language while learning complex grade-level content, teachers must find effective ways to make challenging content comprehensible for students. This updated English learner practice guide, "Teaching Academic Content and Literacy to English Learners in Elementary and…

Problem Statement: Teaching a student critical-thinking skills has always been an important mission of social studies education. Over the years, literature and scholarly interest in critical-thinking in social studies have grown sporadically. Nevertheless, growing interest in the literature and commitment among the scholars did not ensure…

Systematic reviews are used to inform practice, and develop guidelines and protocols. A questionnaire to quantify the risk of bias in systematic reviews, the review paper assessment (RPA) tool, was developed and tested. A search of electronic databases provided a data set of review articles that were then independently reviewed by two assessors…

In the 1960s, the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) developed a programming language called LOGO. Underpinning this invention was a profound new philosophy of how learners learn. This paper reviews research in the area and asks how one notion in particular, that of a microworld, may be used by secondary school educators to build powerful…

Based on two studies that we conducted in the Chicago metropolitan area in 2009 and 2010, we found that teachers do, in fact, use research, although they tend to seek it out under very specific conditions and circumstances. Namely, teachers tend to look for research in response to an immediate, pressing concern, such as how to best teach fractions…

Our current capacity to understand or provide a context for interpreting the size of an effect in education program evaluation is limited. To address the problem, this study proposes a time-indexed effect size metric (d') to estimate how long it would take for an "untreated" control group to reach the treatment group outcome in terms…

Since implementation of reform and opening-up policy, China's teacher education has got significant success on policy design, legislation process, theory research, system reform, model innovation and teaching qualification system building. Teachers' educational background level has been increased. Teachers' professional ethics and teaching…

OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) has worked on Open Educational Resources (OER) in the past, which led to the publication "Giving Knowledge for Free--the Emergence of Open Educational Resources" (2007). This working paper thus builds on exploratory and forward-looking research in CERI and invites countries to consider…

First published in 2001, "Classroom Instruction That Works" revolutionized teaching by linking classroom strategies to evidence of increased student learning. Now this landmark guide has been reenergized and reorganized for today's classroom with new evidence-based insights and a refined framework that strengthens instructional planning. Whether…

More than an estimated 90 million adults in the United States lack the literacy skills needed for fully productive and secure lives. The effects of this shortfall are many: Adults with low literacy have lower rates of participation in the labor force and lower earnings when they do have jobs, for example. They are less able to understand and use…

The concordat to support research integrity sets out five commitments that will provide assurances to government, the wider public and the international community that research in the UK continues to be underpinned by the highest standards of rigour and integrity. Developed in collaboration with the funding and research councils, the Wellcome…