One associate editor's perspective on classroom experiment articles is detailed in this article. The associate editor provides recommendations for manuscripts for the Instruction (those that describe new classroom experiments) and Research (those reporting studies into the efficacy of classroom experiments as a pedagogical tool) Sections of…

New approaches for teaching and assessing scientific inquiry and practices are essential for guiding students to make the informed decisions required of an increasingly complex and global society. The Science Skills approach described here guides students to develop an understanding of the experimental skills required to perform a scientific…

Modern language education favours the model of a reflective teacher-researcher who is engaged in both individual and collaborative curriculum revision and teaching-learning environment improvement. The present paper addresses the issue of classroom research and reflective practice in current ESL pedagogy and teacher professional development. The…

Inquiry-based learning is widely considered for science education in this era. This study aims to explore inquiry-based learning in teacher preparation program and the findings will help us to understanding what inquiry-based classroom is and how inquiry-based learning are. Data were collected by qualitative methods; classroom observation,…

Technology is one of eight learning areas of the New Zealand national curriculum. It aims to develop a broad technological literacy through students participating in programmes in which the practice of technological development is experienced, as is knowledge informing practice, and students gain an understanding of technology as a domain in its…

The purpose of the present article was to analyze the interaction between elementary students and a professional design expert. The expert was present in the classroom, facilitating a collaborative lamp designing process together with the teacher. Using the notion of "figured worlds" (Holland et al. 1998), we explored how learning could be…

Consistent with research conducted by George Spindler 60 years ago, teachers continue to perceive groups of students, typically students that differ from the teacher, as less capable of accomplishing meaningful tasks, belonging and contributing to social groups, and engaging actively in challenging work. The bias is especially great for students…

The intention of this study is to examine how early childhood education (ECE) teachers can promote children's language learning and the construction of knowledge about their environment in everyday conversations. Young children primarily learn through interactions with adults and peers, with conversations representing important arenas for language…

There is considerable agreement about the fact that the presence of researchers in the classroom mediates teaching and learning. Why "should" two very different forms of human activity, one designed to study the other, interact and mediate each other? In this article, we propose cultural-historical activity theory as a framework for understanding…

This paper reports on an Australian government-commissioned research study that documented classroom pedagogies in 24 Queensland schools. The research created the model of "productive pedagogies", which conjoined what Nancy Fraser calls a politics of redistribution, recognition and representation. In this model pedagogies are…

Jigsaw classroom research has primarily explored racial relationships at the primary and secondary educational levels. The present study explored whether the jigsaw classroom would have an effect on students' attitudes about their own academic abilities and practices at the university level. The present study also sought to illuminate the…

Classroom interactional patterns depend on some contextual, cultural and local factors in addition to the methodologies employed in the classroom. In order to delineate such factors, the focus of classroom interaction research needs to shift from the observables to the unobservables like teachers' and learners' psychological states and…

Grounded in teacher professional development addressing the intersection of student diversity and content area instruction, this study examined school teachers' pedagogical reasoning complexity as they reflected on their second language learners' science problem solving abilities using both home and school contexts. Teachers responded to interview…

Research on multilingual classrooms usually focuses on contexts where both teachers and pupils share the same linguistic repertoire; what can be called "symmetrical" multilingual classrooms. This paper sets out to investigate whether (and how) pupils' multilingual resources can be used in classrooms where the teacher does not share pupils'…

In this era of hyper-accountability, teachers are under ever-increasing pressure to demonstrate their worth--often using evidence that is far removed from what seems to be in the best interests of the students. Terms such as "value-added," "evidence-based," and "data-driven" dominate discussions about teaching…