In January 2009 the School of Education, University of Western Sydney decided to appoint an e-learning officer with the aim of improving the quality of online learning environments across course units. The e-learning officer had built a strong relationship with 45 academics across two campuses, with a positive impact on the application of…

Preparing school administrators to promote effective instruction of English language learners (ELLs) is an important dimension of today's educational leadership programs, requiring innovative program activities. This study explores school leadership candidates' use of an observation tool targeted to ELL instruction that incorporated guided video…

The number of English language learners (ELLs) in the United States has increased dramatically. Given this increase it is vital for teacher education programs at the pre-service level and professional learning programs at eh in-service level to address the needs of ELLs. This article presents a teacher preparation model--"a language-based…

This paper describes an emerging learning design for a popular genre of learner-generated video projects: "Ideas Videos" or "iVideos." These advocacy-style videos are short, two-minute, digital videos designed "to evoke powerful experiences about educative ideas" (Wong, Mishra, Koehler & Siebenthal, 2007, p1). We…

This paper reports the results of interrater agreement analyses on a pilot special education teacher evaluation instrument, the Recognizing Effective Special Education Teachers (RESET) Observation Tool (OT). Using evidence-based instructional practices as the basis for the evaluation, the RESET OT is designed for the spectrum of different…

The productive pedagogies as a framework to enhance teaching and learning outcomes were developed by Lingard et al. (2001) consisted of four main dimensions--intellectual quality, connectedness, supportive classroom environment, and working with and valuing differences. This study is to investigate the productive pedagogical practices among…

Working in conjunction with a local school district in the United States, we developed a professional development project--called the Multiliteracies Teacher Institute Project (M-TIP). It composed of a series of three interrelated university courses that were designed to provide university graduate credit and professional development to teachers…

During the last decade, cognitive researchers identified three major challenges facing the use of multimedia materials in instruction. The first challenge is the inclusion of extraneous content that competes with the essential information for limited cognitive resources. Researchers found that including extraneous material in multimedia materials…

How does Skype, as an online communication tool, contribute to school and district administrators' reported level of self-efficacy? A sample of n = 39 participants of which 22 were school administrators and 17 were district administrators was purposefully selected to use Skype in their offices with a webcam and microphone to communicate with other…

Exciting developments in the field of neuroscience are leading to a new understanding of how the brain works that is beginning to transform teaching in the classroom. "Neuroscience & the Classroom: Making Connections" brings together researchers and educators in a dialog about how insights into brain function can be harnessed by teachers for use…

Student-athletes often miss class due to travel and competitions (Diersen, 2005; F. Wiseman, personal communication, September 30, 2010; Hosick, 2010; NCAA On-line, 2008; Rhatigan, 1984). Missing class is negatively associated with grades (Park & Kerr, 1990; Romer, 1993; Schmidt, 1983). Therefore, as classroom instruction time is replaced by…

This study examined the effectiveness of interactive whiteboards on student engagement. Perceptions from 108 middle school students and one middle school teacher were analyzed to answer the research question: What are the perceptions of middle school students and one middle school teacher regarding student engagement during lessons using an…

This research reports a two-phase descriptive study of young children's engagement with ebooks conducted in Head Start classrooms. Phase 1 focused on the development of a typology as an analytic framework for observing engagement with ebooks in different formats (shared book; independent book browsing) and across devices (stationary touch screen;…

Using the Flipped Classroom approach, the teacher "flips" the presentation of the material, the lesson, to non-class time by preparing a video that compresses the material and posting it on a website, such as YouTube, which the students can view at home or anywhere they choose. The teacher, in this case a Math teacher, is then free to…

Collaborative web exploration, in which learners work together to explore the World Wide Web, has become a key learning activity in education contexts. Learners can use a shared computer with a shared display to explore the web together. However, such a shared-computer approach may limit active participation among learners. To address this issue,…