Our use of the electronic media to conduct serious discourse raises the question of whether "we are amusing ourselves to death," as Neil Postman argued. The approach known as "media ecology," the study of media as environments, which emphasizes the need to understand context and find balance, provides a basis for the analysis…

Students often struggle with concepts from abstract algebra. Typical classes incorporate few ways to make the concepts concrete. Using a set of woven paper artifacts, this paper proposes a way to visualize and explore concepts (symmetries, groups, permutations, subgroups, etc.). The set of artifacts used to illustrate these concepts is derived…

Education researchers have established the value of dialogic, whole-class discussions across content areas. However, such discussions have been defined primarily in terms of questions that enable or constrain interactions among multiple students. Research remains to be done on whether and how the subject matter with which teacher and students…

It is beneficial for students to discover intuitive strategies, as opposed to the teacher presenting strategies to them. Certain proportional reasoning tasks are more likely to elicit intuitive strategies than other tasks. The strategies that students are apt to use when approaching a task, as well as the likelihood of a student's success or…

Twenty-first-century students are adept at using technology, which means that incorporating appropriate technology into the classroom can excite and engage students and improve oral production and fluency, which Rossiter, Derwing, Manimtim, and Thomson (2010) have identified as missing from many language classrooms. Therefore, academic…

Current reform in science education calls for teachers to understand student thinking within a lesson to effectively address students' needs (NRC in A framework for K-12 science education: practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas. National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 2012; NRC in Guide to implementing the Next Generation Science…

Researchers examined how an inquiry-based instructional treatment emphasizing interrelated plant processes influenced 210 elementary pre-service teachers' (PTs) conceptions of three plant processes, photosynthesis, cellular respiration, and transpiration, and the interrelated nature of these processes. The instructional treatment required PTs to…

This study investigated the role of content knowledge in conversations of kindergarten teachers during collaborative curriculum design of learning material for technology-enhanced learning. Two teams of teachers received support from an early literacy expert during these design activities. Resulting conversations were analyzed on technological…

Background: Much research and practice in the field of physical activity and physical education for girls has been trapped in a reproductive cycle of telling the "same old story" as if it is news over and over again, since at least the 1980s. A thread running through this narrative is that despite all of this research and related…

The aim of the present study is to investigate pre-service secondary mathematics teachers' cognitive-metacognitive behaviours during the mathematical problem-solving process considering class level. The study, in which the case study methodology was employed, was carried out with eight pre-service mathematics teachers, enrolled at a university in…

This study explores the teaching of second language (L2) Spanish sociopragmatics through concept-based pragmatics instruction (van Compernolle, 2014). The concepts of self-presentation, social distance, and power were the focus of a pedagogical enrichment program in 2 sections of a beginning-level Spanish class at a northeastern U.S. university.…

This article documents the classroom mathematical practices observed in a collegiate level teacher education course related to the circle topic. The course, which was prepared as design research, utilized a dynamic geometry environment which influenced the type and nature of the evolved mathematical practices. The study uses emergent perspective…

This article reports on the development of an online dynamic approach for assessing and improving students' reading comprehension of science texts--the dynamic assessment for reading comprehension of science text (DARCST). The DARCST blended assessment and response-specific instruction into a holistic learning task for grades 5 and 6 students. The…

Demands for scientific knowledge of what works in educational policy and practice has driven interest in quantitative investigations of educational outcomes, and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have proliferated under these conditions. In educational settings, even when individuals are randomized, both experimental and control students are…

The purpose of this article is to describe a family literacy project involving a partnership of school-aged children and their families with in-service and pre-service teachers enrolled in a university course on literacy instruction for English language learners. This project consists of family members sharing their stories with their children to…