Scholars generally agree that there is a gap between lower- and higher-educated citizens on civic competence, which solidifies during adolescence. This two-wave panel study examines how an educational intervention focused on media literacy influences civic competence among lower-educated youth (age 16 to 26). Additionally, the level of civic…

Students in introductory college science courses often have a simplified understanding of the scientific method. To introduce students to the complexity of the scientific process and the value of empirical observations, I implemented a semester-long assignment that required introductory-level college science students to build and calibrate weather…

Efforts have been made among scholars from Japan, South Korea, and China since the 1980s--on both private and state initiatives--to narrow the gaps in their historiographies and to cultivate mutual understanding. This article offers an extensive discussion of the author's history project, "A Student Project of Writing a Common History…

The Bright Lights: Big Experiments! public engagement project enabled high school students Scottish S2 to prepare a short, 5 min video using their own words and in their own style to present a scientific experiment on the theme of light to their contemporaries via YouTube. This paper describes the various experiments that we chose to deliver and…

Simplifying symbolic expressions is usually perceived in middle school algebra as an algorithmic activity, achieved by performing sequences of short drill-and-practice tasks, which have little to do with conceptual learning or with creative mathematical thinking. The aim of this study is to explore possible ways by which ninth-grade students can…

Textbooks are expensive, updated infrequently, and rarely used effectively by students. We discuss here a way for students to create the textbook for the course, helping them feel ownership over the course material. This Wiki-based, student-created textbook is online free for use, widely accessible by all, and editable during the course of and as…

Using low-cost electronic components and building blocks, we have developed an effective teaching module where students design and test light-scattering, air-quality sensors to introduce them to chemical and environmental engineering research. This module has been successful in engaging the public, developing citizen scientists, and bridging gaps…

This article describes a recent teacher researcher's investigation of digitized literature study at a Midwestern U.S. high school during the 2015-2016 school year that explored the use of digital literacies to support student-centered literary analysis. Digital literacy practices position literature students to connect with texts in authentic…

I present an action research study that enacts an Asianist somatic movement education approach to teaching Afro-Haitian dance at Arizona State University as a response to my Chinese American body's experience of hegemony in postsecondary dance curriculum. My pedagogical framework uses an intercultural teaching approach that applies a somatic…

The goal was to gain a deeper understanding of the extended use of student-designed games. 207 students (grades: eight, nine, eleven) from one school participated. They were randomly divided in Experimental (student-designed games) and Equivalent group (traditional instruction). Both experienced the same learning units (two, 12 sessions) over the…

It is known that students face daily life problems in the life sciences course in primary school; therefore, it is particularly important to use empathic skills in resolving these problems. However, research has determined that the teachers allocate only limited time to empathic activities, and there also very few such activities in textbooks.…

This paper contributes with elements of an emerging designs for learning-methodology and takes as its starting point the concept of Students as Learning Designers, which was developed by Sørensen and Levinsen and based on more than a decade of research-and-development projects in Danish primary schools (first to 10th grade). The research focussed…

In an introductory middle grades course, teacher candidates synthesize and apply the concepts from key middle level documents through their coursework. Along with a popular middle grades text (Brown & Knowles, 2014), teacher candidates read "This We Believe: Keys to Educating Young Adolescents" (National Middle School Association,…

Background: Children in the USA face increasing nutrition-related health risks, including obesity rates of 16.9% -- a figure that has more than tripled over the past four decades. Nutrition education is beneficial to improve children's health through obesity prevention and the promotion of healthy habits, and the elementary school years are a key…

This article describes a lesson plan that harnessed students' abilities to generate new teaching material by constructing country timelines. This involved "crowdsourcing," or the reliance upon task inputs from a large number of people to acquire information. The plan was motivated by an approach that conceives of learning as deriving…