A fifth-grade science teacher and university researcher challenged the notion that textbook reading follows the same archaic formula: read the textbook and answer the questions at the end of the section. Together, they adapted literature circle roles to fit textbook structures, resulting in the strategy they call Textmasters. This article…

Creative writing workshops typically feature a gag rule and emphasize purported flaws. This structure limits students' meaningful engagement with each other's work; positions the author as inherently flawed; and positions other participants as authority figures, passing judgment without articulating their aesthetic standards. I propose an…

This book compiles and synthesizes existing research on teachers' use of mathematics curriculum materials and the impact of curriculum materials on teaching and teachers, with a particular emphasis on--but not restricted to--those materials developed in the 1990s in response to the NCTM's Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. Despite…

The "Find Your Classroom Voice Program" has been offered at Kingsborough Community College for the past three years. Its purpose is to enable students who are consistently inactive in class discussions (and who might be called "classroom-specific social phobic") to develop the ability to take a more active role in the classroom. With its success,…

Online learning at the K-12 level has been growing dramatically over the past decade in the United States and worldwide. Proceeding on a similar trajectory, the use of charter schools as a means to provide education choice in the United States has also grown. These two paths have converged in many instances to form online or virtual charter…

A Focus Group Interview (FGI) involves 6-9 people guided through a pre-thought line of questioning for 1-2 hours by a trained Moderator. The Moderator gives participants the opportunity to express ideas, thoughts, and views. This is a robust qualitative data collection method IF there is a skilled FGI Moderator. The Moderator sets the tone,…

In this article, the author shares his experience in teaching a course called "American Political Theory" at Nanjing University in Nanjing, People's Republic of China. The course the author designed was intended to explore the philosophical background of what drove the North American colonists to declare their independence; what ideas…

This paper provides an overview of the "NEST 2014" retreat. The Northeast Scientific Training (NEST) Programs retreat was established with three purposes in mind: (1) to provide underrepresented minority member (URM) trainees with "a community of scholars retreat setting" as an alternative to the formal and highly structured…

Neo magnets are neodymium magnet beads that have been marketed as a desktop toy. We proposed using neo magnets as an alternative building block to traditional ball-and-stick models to construct carbon allotropes, such as fullerene and various nanocone structures. Due to the lack of predetermined physical connections, the versatility of carbon…

In this article, the authors describe a two-phase inquiry lesson in which students explore the catalytic activity of amylase on starch (Rungruangsa and Panijpan 1979). In the first phase, students' prior knowledge about the reaction is assessed through a set of directed prompts and small-group discussion, then challenged or reinforced as students…

The recent growth of online education has added a new dimension to college learning that was unthinkable a few decades ago. Knocking down the traditional notion of the "ivory tower" college campus, online education presents an entirely new classroom paradigm, a shift resulting in more opportunities and challenges. In this article,…

Read-alouds nurture language and literacy practices required for a successful schooling experience. They motivate children to read more and nurture language expression across the curriculum. Read-alouds not only provide content for learning, they also introduce authors and genres; model ways of reading, types of writing, and other ways of…

Science is a social process--one that involves particular ways of talking, reasoning, observing, analyzing, and writing, which often have meaning only when shared within the scientific community. Discussions are one of the best ways to help students learn to "talk science" and construct understanding in a social context. Since inquiry is an…

Online conversations help teachers engage in constructive criticism and attend more carefully to aligning lesson plans with problem solving. This article describes a strategy for using an online discussion board to help teachers evaluate one another's lesson plans. The online peer-review activity suggests that fostering critical pedagogical…

This article describes the Virtual Intercultural Team Tool (VITT) and discusses its processes and benefits. VIIT is a virtual platform designed with the aim of assisting European project teams to improve intercultural communication and build on their cultural diversity for effective implementation of their projects. It is a process-focused tool,…