The article presents a cross-domain inquiry into schoolwide professional learning community. It examines tensions in how professional learning community is conceptualized and how it is enacted in the processes of teacher groups. Drawing on a study of contemporary theatre arts practices, it proposes a model of collective creation that highlights…

Group preparation for teaching contest, or lesson polishing, is a teacher professional development activity unique to China. Through participant observation and discourse analysis of a typical case, this study explores how a science lesson evolved through lesson-polishing process and how such process influenced individual learning and the…

Teaching students to use and interpret different representational tools is critically important if they are to be scientifically literate, to understand how scientific ideas and concepts are represented and to appreciate how scientists think and act. Moreover, students not only need to be competent at using and explaining representations and…

Bullying prevention starts with helping young children understand and accept diversity--the earlier the better. That's why your school team needs this ready-to-use resource, a simple, fun, and effective way to promote social acceptance in the critical early years of attitude development. Perfect for K-2 classrooms, this book presents the…

The Hong Kong Education Bureau recommends that primary school pupils' mathematical achievement be enhanced via collaborative discussions engendered by group work. This pedagogic change may be hindered by Confucian heritage classroom practices and Western-dominated group work approaches that predominate in Hong Kong. To overcome these obstacles, we…

The current study used a mixed design ANOVA to compare the I-Ready reading comprehension scores of 76 students enrolled in an elementary school in South Texas. A previously untested intervention, a literacy-related social skills group, derived from the constructs of emotional intelligence, was compared to the more orthodox interventions of a…

Suppose that you read about a low-cost, evidence-based program that boosts overall school achievement by 11 percentile points while improving school climate, student behavior, and teacher satisfaction? You might be somewhat skeptical, but you'd likely be intrigued. Such an approach exists, writes school psychologist John E. Desrochers:…

Several pressing issues in reading instruction have prompted educators world-wide to conduct researches on how to best improve reading comprehension skills. Although there is a wealth of reading comprehension researches done with EFL learners and native English speakers, there seems to be limited published studies conducted in the Philippine ESL…

While research indicates that technology can be useful for supporting learning and collaboration, there is still relatively little uptake or widespread implementation of these technologies in classrooms. In this paper, we explore one aspect of the development of a multi-touch classroom, looking at two different designs of the classroom environment…

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of the integration of concept maps and tablet PCs in anti-phishing education for enhancing students' learning motivation and achievement. The subjects were 155 students from grades 8 and 9. They were divided into an experimental group (77 students) and a control group (78 students). To begin…

This paper discusses the findings and implications of a semi-randomised control trial study on the effectiveness of circle time (CT) on primary school students' social and emotional learning, as well as classroom teachers' and students' experience of CT. A social and emotional learning programme was delivered through CT by trained classroom…

The author discovered artist Eleanor McCain's work on "Dear Ada," an art blog he follows. McCain makes brightly colored art quilts using various rectangles and squares. She creates visual "pop" by using these shapes in a variety of sizes and bright colors. There is an interesting spatial "push and pull" that happens when looking at her quilts.…

Just as humming a merry tune helped Snow White and her furry animal friends to quickly clean a filthy cottage in the movie "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (Disney & Cottrell, 1937), singing can be an effective way to help keep young children fully engaged during classroom transitions. The purposes of this article are to: (1) consider why…

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of co-operative games and circle time activities in fostering positive peer relations in two French Primary classrooms (N = 40). It presents French teachers' and pupils' perceptions of a set of co-operative games and circle time activities implemented within a year long study on personal, social…

A schoolwide class called Excursions helped a rural Wisconsin school create an environment where everyone could achieve whatever they were comfortable achieving without the restrictions of time. The purpose of an Excursion is to provide students the ability to take charge of their own learning, reflect on what they do, evaluate their work, make…