South African student teachers were studied to see how they coped with requirements to teach science using argumentation. Lesson observations, plans, reflective logs, post-teaching interviews and assessment of pupils' argumentation were used to compare student teachers' preparedness and interactions with pupils. Two clusters of students were…

I use the diary that Darwin wrote during the voyage of HMS Beagle and recent images of a few of the places he visited to illustrate some comparisons between Darwin's world and ours. For today's students, increasingly committed to environmental issues, this may be an especially promising way to introduce Darwin.

This review essay offers an institutional critique of the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Report. The notion of human capabilities and functionings advocated by the Report demonstrates an inspirational perspective to monitor human progress in quality of life (QoL). Several measurements the Report suggested remain inadequate. The personal diary techniques…

The purpose of this study is to examine the writing anxiety levels of primary school 6, 7 and 8th year students in terms of several variables using the "writing anxiety scale" developed by Yaman (2010). The study group is composed of 1407 students enrolled at the 6, 7 and 8th years of 10 primary schools in Sarkisla district of Sivas province. The…

This study tracked the order in which ten beginning spellers (M age = 5 ; 05; SD = 0.21 years) mastered the correct spellings of common inflectional suffixes in English. Spellings from children's journals from kindergarten and grade 1 were coded. An inflectional suffix was judged to be mastered when children spelled it accurately in 90 percent of…

This paper aims at contributing to a fuller understanding of the nature and potential dynamism of self-concept in the foreign language learning domain. Data were generated in a single, three-year longitudinal case study using journals and in-depth interviews. The data were then analysed using a Grounded Theory approach in which the analysis…

This paper takes as a case study an undergraduate field class from a UK university to rural Uganda. It describes and evaluates the use of video diaries as a tool for investigating the process of transformative learning in the context of education for sustainability. The applicability of threshold concept theory to this learning is investigated.…

This article argues for the use of dialogue journals as a means to engage students individually in their educational communities. Practical considerations, such as choice of form and methodology, are included.

Purpose: The objective was to identify and understand the factors involved in scientists' selection of preferred bioinformatics tools, such as databases of gene or protein sequence information (e.g., GenBank) or programs that manipulate and analyse biological data (e.g., BLAST). Methods: Eight scientists maintained research diaries for a two-week…

This article reports on mixed methods classroom research carried out at a British university. The study investigates the effectiveness of two different explicit teaching frameworks, Illustration--Interaction--Induction (III) and Present--Practice--Produce (PPP) used to teach the same spoken discourse markers (DMs) to two different groups of…

In French nursery schools ("l'école maternelle française"), primary school teachers take charge of the content organised into teaching areas of activities. The prescribed teaching activity "Discovering the world of life sciences, objects and material" refers to biology, physical sciences, chemistry and technology. The…

The early twenty-first century has seen increased attention to developing young children's social-emotional skills and competencies in preschool programs, including Head Start--the largest federally funded early-childhood education program in the United States. At the same time, there has been greater recognition of the importance of adapting…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine a sample of 13 English as a second language (ESL) students' attitudes about a computer-aided composition (WebCT) class. Participants were enrolled in an introductory writing course. Data from student diaries revealed that students enjoyed and valued the WebCT course and that the course…

This article explores the relationship between gender, citizenship and leisure activities for youth. The purpose with the article is to describe, explore and discuss whether meeting places for youth such as youth clubs support their citizenship. Based on a case study of young people place, space and activities are explored and discussed from a…

This study explores the potential for the band rehearsal setting to be a reflectively collaborative space. School bands are traditionally large, performance-centered ensembles where discussions between director and student are limited by time and the size of the group. Recognizing the need to base rehearsals less on the conductor's…