Current research indicates that inquiry-based learning should be guided in order to achieve optimal learning outcomes. The need for guidance is even greater when simulations are used because of their high information content and the difficulty of extracting information from them. Previous research on guidance for learning with simulations has…

Professional learning communities (PLCs) are being recognized as effective in improving teacher collaboration and student achievement. Trust is critical in effectively implementing the PLC model, and the school principal is best positioned to influence school trust levels. Using five facets of trust, this research sought to clarify the impact of…

The goal of the study was to examine the joint and distinct contribution of attachment security and social anxiety to Arab children's peer competence in middle childhood. We focused on Arab children as very little research has examined close relationships for this group. A sample of 404 third-, fourth- and fifth-grade Arabic students (203 boys and…

Although controversial, perhaps no piece of legislation has the potential to transform India's future more than the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE). Upon the passage and enforcement of RTE in 2009, the Indian government instituted a series of wide-ranging reforms to India's education system. For example, the act…

Teaching strategies used in fifth-grade classrooms which illustrate three teacher orientations--learning, work, and a lack of work or learning orientation--are described. Six interrelated strategies that support the orientation include: framing lessons; attention focus and redirection; treatment of errors; responsibility for learning and…

Describes a year-long process in which a group of fourth- and fifth-grade students with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds learned to participate in reading, writing, and talking about books in a literature-based instructional program. Reveals a gradual release of responsibility from the teacher to students as they developed the knowledge…

Explores the role of literacy and curriculum in identity construction among fifth graders. Suggests: (1) there was a coherence of perspectives about six of the students while there was less agreement for the other six students; (2) literacy was a more important feature of some students' identities than others; and (3) the literacy curriculum…

Dramatizations as a response activity during literature study provide a vehicle for students to use language, both verbal and nonverbal, in an educational context. A study focused on a group of five students who chose to use story dramatizations as one way to create their interpretations of the book, "The Slave Dancer" (Fox, 1973). The…

The primary purpose of this book is to help teachers develop new insight into the learner's experience of science learning in school settings. The book focuses on the personal experience of the learner, taking the position that learning must be understood not only as a cognitive experience but also as an emotional, personal, social, and cultural…

A case study examined one fifth-grade student's developing response as he participated in a literature-based reading program. The student's response to text over time was traced via observations of the student, interviews, field notes, and written documents he created. Analysis, ongoing during and after the data collection, focused on three…

This study, which was designed to identify factors contributing to children's construction of temporal relationships, investigated 10-year-olds' thought and understanding of historical time. A total of 10 children 10 years of age were interviewed on videotape and asked to construct a time line of historical events and persons. In interviews,…

Offers an interpretive case study designed to provide insights about students' thoughts, feelings, and actions when not initially motivated for literacy tasks, and ways in which some students were able to become intrinsically interested. Reveals three different patterns of engagement (or lack thereof), represented in three different "Situations"…

Describes how a teacher finds value in popular culture and violent writing by closely examining the writing of a student who laces his stories with explosions and battles. Finds that once he began to see the similarities between the media his student experiences, the writing the student prefers, and his own favorite media and writing, the teacher…

This paper challenges the assumption that meaning is in some way magically encoded within texts and argues that questions, when they are used simply as tools to lead readers to a single meaning, are inadequate as a means of reading comprehension assessment. The paper then goes on to describe one of a series of micro case studies that explored…

A qualitative study examined the use of retelling as a culturally responsive strategy for Micronesian students. More specifically, it examined the effect of the retelling strategy on the literacy development of an 11-year-old Micronesian student from Chuuk over the course of 9 months in a fifth-grade Guam classroom. Results showed increases in the…