Design principles for learning provide a framework for creating a collaborative culture, structures, and dispositions as part of an effective professional learning system to continuously inform and improve teaching and learning. Design principles engage teachers in continuous, accelerated, and sustained learning about instructional practices in…

This study examined the associations between four types of childcare quality (i.e. teacher-child closeness, frequency of math-related activities, and teacher education and experience) and preschoolers' residualised gain in math over the course of six months. Additionally, potential interactions between teacher-child closeness and other…

In the present study a generalized approach is given for the description of acquisition procedures with a particular focus on the knowledge acquisition process. The learning progression is given as an example here letting the theory to be applied to different situations. An analytical approach is performed starting from the generalized fundamental…

This paper focuses on an interdisciplinary project using an innovative teaching methodology developed to generate substantive interaction between international students and mainstream students on American campuses. The process was created after asking international students from a variety of countries the question, "What is the biggest…

We investigated some of the key features of effective active learning by comparing the outcomes of three different methods of implementing active-learning exercises in a majors introductory biology course. Students completed activities in one of three treatments: discussion, writing, and discussion + writing. Treatments were rotated weekly between…

This article examines peer-to-peer learning--in virtual schools--among the most vulnerable of students. As a description of a comprehensive case study focused on three different students with disabilities, their parents, their teachers, and their school administrators, this article examines the effects of three kinds of variables on the prevalence…

Physical education teachers and the programs that prepare them find themselves in the early part of the 21st century in a public policy environment that differs significantly from that of the 20th century. This policy environment is grounded in an ideology that postulates that schools and teachers, rather than social forces, should be held…

All education proceeds within a complex array of epistemological and ontological factors that constitute a shifting and intricate learning environment for teachers, pre-service teachers and school students alike. We have expanded a "praxis inquiry" protocol into a "critical praxis" protocol for use in pre-service programs. A…

Classroom emotional climates (ECs) are interrelated with students' engagement with university courses. Despite growing interest in emotions and EC research, little is known about the ways in which social interactions and different subject matter mediate ECs in preservice science teacher education classes. In this study we investigated the EC…

This article is about the ways in which young children engage with technological toys and resources at home and, in particular, the ways in which the family context makes a difference to young children’s engagement with these technologies. The data reviewed come from family interviews and parent-recorded video of four case study children as they…

Based on the study of seventy-four middle school children of mostly Filipino and part Hawaiian heritages, this article explores the relationships of children's thinking styles, play preferences, and school performance. Using the Group Embedded Figures Test, the Articulation of the Body Scale, and written responses to three questions, the authors…

This study focused on the stability and change in students' achievement goal orientations and whether the students' perceptions of the learning environment vary as a function of their achievement goal orientations. Participants were 169 students of the Finnish National Defense University. The students' goal orientations and their evaluations of…

Within the field of science education, there remains little agreement as to the definition and characteristics of classroom inquiry. The emerging emphasis on scientific practices in science education reform discourse is underpinned by a need to better articulate the constituent elements of inquiry-based science. While a small number of…

An important trend in Dutch Vocational Education and Training (VET) to ensure the curriculum continuity of sequential educational programmes is the design of continuing pathways encompassing more than one qualification level. These continuing pathways are characterised by different design formats and differences in learning environment…

The study examines the relationship between social presence and students' learning outcomes. An emerging body of research connects social presence with learning outcomes in online coursework. Social presence is the "degree to which a person is perceived as a 'real person' in mediated communication" (Gunwardena &…