As discipline-based astronomy education researchers become more interested in experimentally testing innovative teaching strategies to enhance learning in undergraduate introductory astronomy survey courses ("ASTRO 101"), scholars are placing increased attention toward better understanding factors impacting student gain scores on the…

Teachers find that having close personal relationships with students is deeply rewarding in their work and that they contribute to more effective classrooms. The relationships, which many consider to be part and parcel of good teaching, afford teachers the opportunity to reach students intellectually and emotionally. Still, the relationships can…

Responding to globalization trends, many engineering schools are internationalizing their courses and curricula to prepare graduates for careers that involve working across countries and cultures. As a result, both students and staff are looking beyond study abroad to international work, research, and service learning opportunities as alternate…

Laboratory work is considered essential in promoting students' learning of science and of scientific inquiry. What the students perceive as important to learn from a regular laboratory exercise is probably affected by the teacher's objectives. We study the extent to which one teacher's objectives are fulfilled during lab work, and how…

For decades teacher leadership has been widely promoted by policy makers and education leaders as a prime strategy for improving the educational enterprise. As practitioners of exemplary teaching, as innovators of pedagogy and curriculum, and as promoters of high-quality instruction for all students, teacher leaders are uniquely positioned to…

Educational practices that purposely seek to tie the realities of place to instruction, particularly for the purpose of student engagement, are typically referred to as place-based education. This study investigates how one teacher considered place in making instructional choices for eighth grade English students in a rural high school, and…

The zones framework conceived for the examination of thinking about teaching, is validated, and extended to the examination of thinking about learning. This is done by extending the framework to examine thinking about teaching and learning in a population of science graduate student teaching assistants. Semi-structured interviews explore these…

There is increasing concern over disengagement of teacher candidates during on-campus periods of pre-service programs due to the perceived disconnect between educational theory and practice. In response, teacher education has been called to engage candidates in praxis through authentic learning. In this paper, we bring together the fields of…

Situational interest has been identified as an important motivational variable that has an impact on students' academic performances, yet little is known about how the specific variable of the learning environment might trigger students' situational interest. The purpose of this study was to investigate sources that stimulate the interest of…

This study examined the perceptions of six first-year students involved in a residential learning community during the program's pilot year. During group interviews, study participants shared their perceptions about what they were learning as members of the community and what value they placed on that learning. The findings indicated students…

The combination of federal exigency for Highly Qualified Teachers in every classroom (No Child Left Behind, 2001) and focus on teacher accountability has created a plethora of routes to teacher certification and continuing education. This urgent situation has placed a burden on schools of education to approach teacher education in creative and…

After 18 years of using a traditional approach to teaching, a middle-school teacher turned her classroom into a shared learning experience by giving students the responsibility to make choices about their education. To reassure parents who were skeptical of the Foxfire approach, she continued to interject traditional learning activities. (LP)

This investigation examines school-family partnership relationships in rural and remote settings. The study highlights the teaching-learning relationships of classroom teachers, parents as instructors/supervisors, and students as they make sense of numeracy and literacy outcomes in distance education contexts. The case study data provide insights…

One of the issues that relates to Asian international students' perceptions about the quality of higher education is with regards to the difficulties and problems they face while studying in an Australian university. A survey was conducted with 78 First Year to Fourth Year Asian international undergraduate students undergoing a range of programs…

This paper reports on the learning experiences of a small group (n = 13) of teaching assistants who volunteered to participate in a pilot online Foundation Degree module. As part of the evaluation methodology, participating students were randomly assigned into two groups, with each group having clearly defined but different types of tutorial…