Courtney Loynachan was a student in Dr. Lindquist's summer 2014 "Teaching Science in the Elementary School" methods course at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The course included an exploration of the power of writing as a learning tool for science with a particular focus on the use of science notebooks. Throughout the…

One of the many challenges that teachers face in mathematics classrooms is determining how much of the verbal and written explanations help students accomplish instructional goals. The challenge is greater in linguistically diverse classrooms because the explanations and multiple representations are not perceived uniformly by all students. Recent…

As the 21st century's first decade draws to a close, America's public school students are participating in online academic classes in increasingly large numbers. More than one million K-12 public school students took online courses in the 2007-2008 school year, according to an estimate in a recent Sloan Consortium survey. This represents a 47…

When the author was teaching in an elementary foreign language exposure (FLEX) program several years ago, she completed a research project that documented student learning gained from student dialogue journals. The action research initiative taught her the value of being reflective about her teaching practices. Her thesis research requirements…

This unit was created as a result of a summer institute sponsored by the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa. The Center's goal is to improve student learning of foreign languages in kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12). To this end, the Center provides professional support for foreign language…

As a profession language educators are paying more attention to teacher-driven research to help clarify and explain those phenomena occurring in our classrooms. The purpose of this paper is to explore the following question: What happens when teachers apply a teacher action research (TAR) strategy for improving their classroom practice? I will…

This thematic unit was written by Michele Montas and Luz Cannon, middle school Spanish teachers, who were participants in a summer institute held at the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center in 2001. The institute, called "Temas Anejos: Recurring Themes in Ancient and Modern Latin America," brought together a talented group of professors.…