The demands of art projects in public schools may not fit with reality for many exceptional students because the project outcomes are often too specific (Henley, 1992). One strong motivator for students is looking at and discussing visual culture, involving all the images they see and all the visual experiences they have every day. This pedagogy…

From an ecological perspective, learning and development in childhood and throughout the lifespan occur in the context of interactions within complex social networks. Collectively, the articles in this special issue illuminate three important themes related to teacher-student interactions within instructional contexts: relationships, competence,…

The purpose of this article is to propose a theoretical framework for creative education, which consists of three dimensions: initiation, operation, and content. I will first review the creativity literature in education, and then go on to demarcate three levels with several components that are necessary to a pedagogical practice for creative…

Online education has a relatively short history in the grand history of education. With options for online delivery modes developed over the last two decades, understanding student motivations for choosing one option over another will be helpful to any institution of higher education planning new offerings. This reflective paper presents the…

This article presents virtual reality as a tool for classroom literacy instruction. Building on the traditional use of images as a way to scaffold prior knowledge, we extend this idea to share ways virtual reality enables experiential learning through field trip-like experiences. The use of technology tools such Google Street view, Google…

Dealing with learners who prefer to take the back seat and avoid classroom participation can be every teacher's nightmare. This lack of participation may cause teacher frustration, and possibly the only way to reduce this lack of participation is to access the concept of avoidance strategy. Avoidance strategy is the abandonment of a classroom task…

In the conventional system of education, a student can regularly interact with teachers and peers and effectively and smoothly carry on with the learning process. However, in the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) system, students have to learn by themselves with the self-instructional materials and with the minimum guidance received from…

This article examines different approaches to motivation and effective motivational strategies to engage students to learn. It discusses major perspectives on motivation and classroom applications. It analyses the teacher's role in creating motivational atmosphere. It suggests various motivational strategies for creating effective learning…

The oldest Millennials are now well-established in their careers, requesting flex schedules so they can take their kids to soccer practice in the afternoons; they have little in common with the typical 18- to 22-year-old undergraduate in many college classrooms. For faculty at campuses serving primarily traditional students, it seems like a good…

Despite the celebrated history of social workers engaging in the political realm for the purposes of fostering social change, students sometimes seem ambivalent regarding the essential nature of their political engagement while also doubting their ability to make a difference through these efforts. How can social work educators combat feelings of…

We place collaborative student engagement in a nontraditional perspective by considering a novel, more interactive educational environment and explaining how to employ it to enhance student learning. To this end, we explore modern technological classroom enhancements as well as novel pedagogical techniques which facilitate collaborative learning.…

The quality of students' relationships with teachers and peers is a fundamental substrate for the development of academic engagement and achievement. This chapter offers teachers and researchers a motivational framework that explains how positive and negative student-teacher and student-peer relationships are sustained in the classroom, and…

Yulia Bulatkulova discovered her passion for English language teaching at a young age as a result of the example set by an esteemed childhood English teacher, Elvira Kuyanova. This article discusses how Ms. Bulatkulova's interactions with her students, both inside and outside the classroom, demonstrate that she has followed in the footsteps of her…

This informed commentary article offers a simple, effective classroom management strategy in which the teacher uses routine documentation to motivate students both to perform academically and to behave in a manner consistent with established classroom rules and procedures. The pragmatic strategy is grounded in literature, free to implement,…

Language educators consider student motivation as fundamental in supporting student learning and central to making sound pedagogical decisions in order to help students develop competence in the target language. However, many teachers opt for using simplistic and prescriptive formulas or one-size-fits-all motivational models that claim positive…