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This research paper attempts to investigate the organization and effectiveness of vocabulary notebooks by distinguishing several benefits the implementation of this technique brings in the acquisition of technical terminology through an "English for Specific Purposes course". When tackling with language learning, it is needless to emphasize the noteworthiness and the importance of vocabulary in this process. Appertaining to technical terminology, this plays entirely pertinent. Various studies have concluded that vocabulary notebooks (henceforth VN) efficiently expose different learners' strategies within this single strategy, which led us to research VN. These research data were obtained mainly by applying the observational research technique, a vocabulary oral and written exam, and a comprehensive questionnaire on the effectiveness of the Vocabulary Notebook. Mechanical Engineering, Textile Engineering, and Hydrotechnical Engineering students at the Polytechnic University of Tirana were selected to obtain the data. The observation is partly overt and partly covert. Students of Mechanical Engineering and Textile Engineering (75 students) are the treatment group wherein the Mechanical Engineering students are an overt group and the Textile Engineering students serve as the covert observational group while on the other hand, the Hydrotechnical Engineering (45 students) students are the control group. The data were obtained during and at the end of the semester. Throughout the observation all along the 1st semester, it was perceived that most of the students organized their VN by utilizing mainly Microsoft Word downloaded on their Smart Phones, while the rest used the traditional paper notebook to organize their technical VN. The organization of the VN reflected the strategies each of the students implemented to learn technical terminology. At the end, students were tested on their acquired terminology through an oral and a short-written exam and then a questionnaire was handed to them. The students of the overt group making use of a digitalized form of a Notebook resulted to have acquired most of the technical vocabulary. In the main, the overt group outperformed the covert group on the acquisition of technical vocabulary, while the control group's score on the oral exam was significantly below, compared to the all-inclusive treatment group. Students' questionnaire revealed that overall students had a positive approach to this strategy and they embraced the autonomy acquired throughout the semester by implementing this strategy. With the exception of the effectiveness on vocabulary acquisition, which was on higher levels, this strategy proved itself once again to be an enhancer and promoter of learner autonomy. [Note: The page range (315-334) shown is incorrect. The correct page range is 315-333.]

This article presents the design and results of a workshop for first-year college students based on a conceptual framework that teaching self-regulated learning practices would lead to greater academic self-efficacy and success for students. Twenty-eight undergraduate students attended this voluntary workshop. Pre- and post-workshop surveys were used to explore correlations between students' self-regulated learning and academic self-efficacy. Student journals and focus groups explored influences of self-regulated learning strategies on students' perceived academic self-efficacy. Longitudinal data provided evidence that 27 of 28 student participants earned degrees, and some entered graduate programs. Results suggest that developing and implementing self-regulated learning strategies may improve a student's academic self-efficacy, which in turn may facilitate academic momentum through a continuous feedback loop that, once established, can lead to academic persistence. These findings may have important implications for those interested in creating opportunities to increase student retention, improve academic success for students, and facilitate lifelong learning.

Journaling assignments are generative practices for the sport management classroom because they can help students process course content through self-reflection and relate their acquired knowledge to their experiences and worldviews. This essay presents journaling as an example of contemplative pedagogy, an educational technique that supports the development of skills in mindful self-awareness, as well as the translation of course content to practical knowledge through calm and creative expression. The essay outlines the practical implementation of contemplative journaling in undergraduate courses and contends that it is a useful pedagogical tool for the sport management classroom, particularly in helping students engage with topics concerning social justice and inequalities in the industry.

A number of university educators decided to implement an experience "pilot": the co-creation of a blog with students in which they disseminated some topics of the subject "Spanish political system", taken as part of a joint honors degree in law and political science from the Faculty of Political Sciences and Sociology of the Complutense University of Madrid. Four professors and 42 students participated in this experience. In the first phase, the students, under the supervision of the professors, collaboratively developed each of the assigned topics. To do so, the professors explained the dynamics, provided them with a series of resources, trained them in collaborative work techniques, supervised the whole process, and resolved all their doubts. In a second phase, they jointly evaluated one subject to see the possible deviations that had occurred with respect to the initial model, in order to be able to correct them in the rest. In addition, the professors conducted a student survey to measure teamwork and the impact of the blog, the results of which were shared with the participants and at specialized conferences. Thanks, this pilot program has shown that blogging is an important technological tool for the transformation and improvement of teaching and learning processes, and that it encourages the active role of students and promotes their collaborative learning, generating knowledge with and for students.

Biology is a core and required science subject offered at the upper secondary school level in the Nigerian educational system. However, students' attitude towards the subject is poor, a trend probably due to the use of teacher-centred educational strategies. Scholars have thus advocated for the need to adopt innovative educational strategies to enhance students' attitude towards biology. This study investigated the use of consensus and cooperative reflective journal writing educational strategies in enhancing students' attitudes towards biology in two Local Government Areas (LGAs) within Ibadan Metropolis of Oyo State, Nigeria. The study adopted a quantitative pre-test-post-test, control group quasi-experimental design involving a 3x2 factorial matrix, with a positivist paradigm. Purposive sampling was used to select six schools across the LGAs while an intact class of upper secondary school II students was selected from each of the schools for a total of 305 participants. Two instruments, the Biology Attitude Questionnaire (BAQ) and the Students' Verbal Ability Test (SVAT) were used during the study. The data generated were analysed using the Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). Results showed that, treatments enhance students' attitudes toward biology. Results also revealed that students' verbal ability had effect on students' attitudes toward biology. The interaction between treatment and verbal ability was not significant to enhance students' attitudes toward biology. The two strategies, therefore, enhanced students' attitude towards Biology in the two LGAs within Ibadan metropolis of Oyo State, Nigeria. The two strategies should therefore be adopted in teaching Biology to upper secondary school students in Nigeria and elsewhere.

Purpose: Empowering students has become one of the primary goals of education in the 21st century. The current trend of education is moving towards student-centred and independent learning. The core success of student empowerment lies in the teaching and learning approaches used to engage students. Thus, the present study aims to examine how "Hikmah" pedagogy, a philosophical inquiry approach, empowers students through the development of a community of inquiry and students' inquiry skills in learning Islamic Education. Method: This study employed a case study design on a Form 4 class comprising 24 students. The method of data collection involved classroom observation and students' reflective journaling. Analysis of classroom discourse was conducted according to Bloom's Taxonomy to identify higher-order levels of thinking engaged by the students. Meanwhile, students' journals were analysed thematically to examine how "Hikmah" pedagogy empowered their thinking. Findings: The study found that after four "Hikmah" pedagogy sessions, students' thinking improved from lower-order to higher-order thinking (HOT) based on the students' level of questions posed in the "Hikmah" sessions. Questions posed by the students also indicated an improvement in terms of the quantity and quality of the questions. Finally, analysis of the students' journals showed that students found "Hikmah" pedagogy a provoking approach that continuously engaged them to be independent in their thinking. This is most useful when learning Islamic Education since it deals with many abstract concepts that require deep understanding. Significance: Results of the study have shown that "Hikmah" pedagogy can empower students by improving their HOT, developing their inquiry skills and independent thinking, which directly assist in realising the objectives of Islamic Education, which are to understand, internalise and practise Islamic principles and values.

Service-learning literature regularly recommends small group activities as a learning tool but rarely examines the use of a broader application of a small group dynamics framework into a service-learning course. In this research, we explore the integration of small group dynamics frameworks into a service-learning classroom; this pedagogical layering enhances the desired outcomes of service-learning. This intentional layering aims to reinvigorate research and practice in the areas of curricular design, theoretical framing, and pedagogical approaches.

This article reports on the preliminary results of a pedagogical experiment instituted by a community of practice (CoP) called the Creativity Collaborative, which is composed of scholars from varying disciplines, backgrounds, and scholarship interests: library and information science, technical education, academic librarianship, media literacy, and rhetoric and composition. In a desire to broaden approaches to teaching and research, the CoP came together around the shared interests of visual methodology and arts-based expression and embarked on a journey to infuse creativity in their professional practice. Through the methodology of self-study, including the CoP acting as a critical friends group, the Creativity Collaborative engaged in individual research activities and then brought data from those projects to the group for discussion and reflection. The results thus far indicate that providing students with opportunities for creativity and arts-based expression lead to a welcome and positive disruption of traditional teaching and learning, increased student engagement, meaning making and real-word connections, and collaborative risk taking that decenters traditional pedagogical systems. Together with students, the Creativity Collaborative discovered the freedom to depart from the normative traditions of higher education pedagogical practices.

Metacognition can be considered as knowledge about one's own cognitive activities and their regulation during learning processes (Flavell, 1979). Students are, then, involved in metacognitive mental activities when they think about what they have learned, how they have learned it, or how they can relate it to their personal experiences, among other things. Based on this, students who develop these skills should show more appropriate strategies to know what they need to find out or do while learning. Therefore, understanding and controlling these cognitive processes may be one of the most essential skills that teachers should encourage at all academic levels (Anderson, 2002). The Guided Learning Diary (GLD, Bort-Mir, 2016) was developed as a learning diary with several aims: (i) defining the general and specific objectives of the content to be taught, (ii) developing the students' metacognitive skills through strategic questions, and (iii) promoting the development of important competences such as self-criticism, autonomous learning, self-evaluation and capacity for improvement. The GLD also allows a self-evaluation process for teachers, thus facilitating the supervision and improvement both of the contents of the course and the didactic methodology. This tool was developed and applied within the Theatre in English subject at Universitat Jaume I, embedded in the third course of the English Studies Degree, and the students' results were significantly higher than those of previous years (Bort-Mir & Silvestre-López, 2017). The present research proposes a technological turn in the application of the GLD with the use of the open-source tool Penzu™. The creation of academic online diaries with this tool may improve students' motivation while promoting meaningful and self-regulated learning in Higher Education environments, thus helping students reach academic success. Penzu™ allows this investigation to widen the scope of the GLD to the general public.

In this article the authors present two different ways in which journaling has been utilised with final year pre-service teacher students (PSTs) in their primary/middle science and mathematics pathway course. Pedagogical practices that model effective teaching and learning in a tertiary setting are an integral component of this course. As teacher educators exploring ways to develop our practices, we introduced journaling as a teaching and learning tool. The first results section of this article focuses on the journaling experiences of PSTs, including the different ways they chose to engage with journaling and factors contributing to their engagement or disengagement. The second presents four case studies of PSTs who used journaling as part of their action research and/or in their final teaching practice. The findings highlight a number of different approaches to journaling which support graduate and pre-service teachers in their endeavours to be reflective teachers of mathematics and science

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of question prompts on the process of journal writing by comparing unstructured and structured journals from pre-service teachers in the context of a Teaching Practicum course. Four early childhood pre-service teachers in their final year of undergraduate study constituted the case of this study. The unstructured and structured journals they kept in this process were compared in terms of content and reflection levels, and a questionnaire was utilized to determine their views. The study showed that when compared to unstructured writing, the use of question prompts assisted the pre-service teachers in achieving an advanced level of reflection in their journal writing.

This collaboration between the dance and learning technology departments at Bath Spa University, sought to develop a dance repertoire module with the use of mobile technologies, in order to enhance collaborative and discursive opportunities for students. The introduction of mobile technologies into a face-to-face teaching environment initiated a blended model of teaching and learning whereby the technology became a partner to the existing practice. The module was taught within the first year of the BA(Hons) Dance course, with 39 female and three male undergraduate students participating over a two-year period. The purpose of the project was to apply specialist ICT knowledge to teaching spaces, in order to diversify established practices. In light of this purpose, the project design was driven by Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) whereby historically established working methods are brought to question through a new tool; the mobile application 'Coach's Eye'. Through the collection of tutor observations, student journals and post-project interviews, it was clear that Coach's Eye had facilitated a more democratic environment and greater range of activity. The extent to which the addition of technologically-supported learning improved student engagement and enhanced the learning would require further research utilising data designed for that purpose.

International travel has long been considered a key pedagogical strategy for global learning. Yet very little is known about whether study-abroad experiences increase students' awareness of the impact of tourism as a global phenomenon. In this study, we assessed students' learning through a content analysis of their journals and final essays from a short-term study-abroad course that used key concepts from the sociology of tourism to explore the impact of tourism in a developing country. Findings demonstrate how thinking sociologically about travel and tourism enabled students to look "behind the scenes," fostered critical-thinking skills, helped in their self-assessment of ethnocentrism, and promoted a sense of global responsibility. We also discuss areas that merit further pedagogical attention, particularly when students struggle to unlearn preconceived ideas about poverty and inequality or resort to overgeneralizations when thinking comparatively.

Classroom management (CM) is one of the major challenges faced by novice teachers. We define CM as the set of actions that teachers undertake to build a classroom climate that promotes students' academic, and socioemotional competence (SEC). This study is an evaluative case study of an innovation in a CM course for students, in a teaching education undergraduate program at a private University in Colombia. Specifically, we examined the potential of a set of pedagogic strategies (i.e. active learning and reflective journals) to develop preservice teachers' SEC, CM self-efficacy and non-controlling discipline beliefs. Results from quantitative and qualitative analyses showed the potential that active learning and reflective journals have to prepare preservice teachers for the challenges of CM.

In this study, the role of reflective practice and collaborative learning practice in promoting learner autonomy (LA) and improving reflective thinking skills (RT) and related learner perceptions were explored. A mixed-method design was preferred to investigate the issue, with participants enrolled in an Academic English Skills (EAP) course (N = 41). Quantitative data analysis of pre- and post-test scores of Learner Autonomy Scale (LAS) and Reflective Thinking Scale (RTS) detected no statistically significant difference in participants' learner autonomy and reflective thinking skills. However, the results of Change in Learner Autonomy Scale (CLARTS) demonstrated a statistically significant change in LA and RT. Finally, the qualitative findings obtained from student interviews supported the results of CLARTS and revealed positive attitudes of learners towards reflective practice and collaborative practice.

While the significance of imparting reflective thinking skills to business undergraduates is widely acknowledged, the optimal approaches to attain this objective remain uncertain. Furthermore, there is a scarcity of empirical evidence regarding the effectiveness of specific teaching initiatives aimed at achieving this goal. Therefore, firstly, this pilot study introduces a digital approach to developing reflective thinking skills. It builds upon the integration of using photographs to capture learning experiences, combined with written narratives within the context of constructing an e-portfolio. Secondly, responding to the need to validate technology's role in developing reflective thinking skills, this pilot study utilised hierarchical linear regression to analyse survey responses from 41 business undergraduates. The aim was to test hypotheses related to the proposed initiative. The pilot study findings uncover that higher digital competencies in portfolio creation strengthen the link between the effectiveness of photo use for capturing learning experiences and undergraduates' reflective thinking skill development.

The blog and distance learning: the former can enhance, enlighten, and elevate the educational experience for the student and the teaching experience for the instructor. And blogs are especially suited for the asynchronous environment where nearly everything is written and remains throughout the course, so students can continually refer to the blog and interact with it, while instructors can use it to highlight or reenforce various components of the course. This article provides a miniguide to constructing and implanting blogs that will result in an overall improvement to the effectiveness of courses.

The review explores the philosophical basis of the application of Rosenblatt's Reader Response Theory (RRT) to teach reading-to write of literary works in practical senses in EFL contexts across borders. Grounded in the integration of paradigm shift from text- to reader-oriented, critical pedagogy and literacy, and socio-constructivism, reader response-based teaching pedagogy places learners among the active meaning makers as members of a democratic classroom community while getting immersed in critical reading-writing (literacy) events. Moreover, this critical review highlights the possible classroom practices as framed by RRT principles that offer freedom and enjoyment in reading literary works to face the sophistication of varied modern 21st century educational web-based platforms that lead to the use of e-response journal and e-literature circles by means of e-peer-reviewing. Drawing on the current technology-enriched teaching media, RRT application is expected to benefit most EFL learners in gauging literature-based literacy development to sensitize their intercultural communication across global contexts. Moreover, recommended practical trends of RRT principles are presented in this review.

This study aimed to raise awareness of maker education for pre-service teachers and discuss maker education in their major subjects by developing and applying a maker education course for pre-service teachers with various majors based on novel engineering (NE), a teaching and learning method that combines humanities and engineering. Accordingly, the course was developed following the procedure of the Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation (ADDIE) model, and the educational effectiveness was investigated using test tools. The educational effect and difficulties were also examined through the analysis of reflective journals written by 20 pre-service teachers with various majors who participated in the course. To investigate the educational effectiveness of the developed course, the science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) literacy of the participants--before and after the course--was measured, with the results demonstrating a statistically significant improvement. Analysis of the reflective journals identified a recognition of sharing effectiveness, the joy of making, and an in-depth understanding of maker education as education effects, and a lack of understanding of techniques, the burden of prototype fabrication, and the limitation of majoring subjects as difficulties experienced during the activities. This study verified that NE could be used as a significant maker education measure for pre-service teachers with various majors. Based on this verification, this study also proposes a strategy to develop more effective NE-based maker education.

At present there is a global need to assume an inquiry stance to address problems to locate solutions, as complex problems surface in all walks of life. With new Health and Physical Education provincial curricula emerging in 2019, the province of Ontario (Canada) is also making inquiry a priority. Educators in Ontario are expected to lead students in inquiry efforts yet in order to do this requires teacher training that is authentic, appropriate and professional. The purpose of this study is to examine how aspects of Action Research (AR) can be used to enhance and improve teaching with its inquiry-based learning elements that complement the role of educators and students alike. Journaling in AR is an analysis mode that can help participants achieve certain resolutions within an educational landscape. AR can infuse and nurture teacher self-development within teacher training while improving interpersonal relationships and developing pedagogy via practical experiences. Teacher change through AR occurs within the interactions, experiences and professional development that seems to imbue teacher training.

The authors place the problem of a subject-oriented model in educational process of higher education. The transition to subject-oriented methods is due to the transformations of modernity. Objective changes in reality, informatization and technological changes, require from students fundamentally new knowledge and skills, which the classical educational model cannot provide. This research presents the quantitative results of an educational investigation that was conducted with the aim of finding and testing the optimal forms in teaching humanities in university. The investigation was attended with students who studied the course of philosophy in the Academic Year 2018-2019; we used different forms and methods of working with philosophical material: from classical to non-classical (philosophical practice). In the investigation, we used philosophical practice as an alternative method of teaching philosophy. The non-classical nature of philosophical practice is manifested in the fact that attention is switched from the studied material to the subject of study. In those student groups where methods and techniques from philosophical practice were used, we fixed the students' attention not on the abstract philosophical concepts, but on the specifics of the perception of these concepts by the students themselves. In this way, we narrowed the distance between the theoretical level of philosophical knowledge and the real existential experience of modern students. In the process of the investigation, we paid attention to the independent work of students in the educational process. The materials of the investigation can be used as recommendations for the organization of extracurricular work, focused on the formation of soft skills among students (including discussion and philosophical clubs for the development of critical thinking, logic and other open intellectual creative platforms).

With the aim of investigating the values gained by using interactive notebook applications in social studies lessons for secondary school students, this study was completed as a case study from the qualitative research pattern including 21 students attending a state secondary school in Izmir province during the 2017-2018 educational year and using interactive social studies notebooks. The 21 students selected with the simple random sampling method underwent individual, face-to-face semi-structured interviews. The obtained data was analyzed with the MAXQDA 2020 program for content analysis. The following conclusions were reached based on the obtained findings; during ISSN [Interactive Social Studies Notebooks] activities students helped each other more compared to normal educational activities and they conceptualized and developed the importance of helping. When students helped each other they felt happy, good, loved and that their friendships were strengthened. They developed their sense of sharing when everyone did the activity together and shared the material they needed. With sharing values, the students began to trust each other and developed a sense of trust. The value of responsibility also developed, though not as much as the other values. Students participating in the research enjoyed doing activities together and expression of this situation can be said to show they developed esthetic feelings. Within the framework of ISSN activities, students generally had positive criticism of the activities performed with friends, but some students had negative criticism. Students performing ISSN activities attempted to leave their surroundings or working area clean at the end of lessons. Students who forgot to clean were warned by other students.

There exists a disconnect between instruction about biological evolution and acceptance of evolution by students. This disconnect prevents students from applying the theory to their lives or to their understanding of the field of biology. We examine the literature for common barriers to the acceptance of evolution, correlates with acceptance of evolution, and potential means by which education might result in increased levels of acceptance among students. We find that by changing the way that teachers themselves are taught, and by altering the methods teachers use to teach, it is likely that student acceptance of evolution can increase from instruction.

This study investigated the effects of multimodal tasks on critical reading ability and perceptions of Thai university students. To compare effects on critical reading ability, students were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups and assessed with pre- and post-critical reading tests. Furthermore, reflective journals and semi-structured interviews were used to gain in-depth information about students' perceptions towards the multimodal tasks. The findings revealed that the experimental group with the treatment of multimodal tasks outperformed the control group in critical reading test scores. Furthermore, evidence from the reflective journals and semi-structured interviews showed that students generally had a positive perception of the multimodal tasks. The multimodal tasks not only assisted them in proposing critical reading ideas and fostered analytical thinking skills, but also enhanced intrinsic motivation and learning autonomy.

Primary school topics involving abstract concepts are challenging to teach. Electric circuits can be simply constructed but complex to explain. New approaches in teaching students for understanding are needed to advance practice in primary science. This paper combines the strengths of multimodality research perspectives with variation theory to provide insights into a teaching sequence designed for year 6 students. Application of a representation construction approach (RCA) provides opportunities for multimodal meaning-making of electric circuits. The case study adopted a design-based research method to investigate teaching electric circuits. Data collection involved video capture of classroom practice, teacher and student interviews, student journal entries and assessment artefacts, field notes, and pre-test and post-test results. Design principles included identifying key ideas, devising a lesson sequence emphasising energy transfer and transformation, hands-on exploration using multimodal representations in response to learning challenges, and student journaling. Students' metarepresentational competence was also developed through evaluation, negotiation, and creation of representations and models of electric circuits. Representational challenges followed by strategic teacher-led discussion facilitated students' developing understanding through focusing attention on critical features. Deep learning was evidenced by journal records, formative and summative assessment artefacts, and post-test responses. RCA principles were instrumental in the successful design of an effective teaching sequence through focus on critical aspects of energy. We advocate a RCA for the design of a multimodal learning sequence. Variation theory was a useful analytical framework to understand the enactment of the design sequence. The study contributes to the challenge of rethinking traditional teaching practices in primary science.

The purpose of this action research piece was to discuss my experience with teaching close reading in the urban classroom using autoethnographic methods. It explains ideas and challenges that I encountered when teaching close reading in conjunction with close reading strategies. I detail close reading strategies and explain how they can be used advantageously. The article closes with ideas on how I learned the importance of promoting student self-application of strategies, incorporating strategies so that they are not time consuming, differentiating strategies, and ultimately, the idea of promoting reading for enjoyment.

The use of writing models with nonnative English speakers has received a certain amount of criticism--especially from teachers whose students copy models in their entirety or follow them too closely. The misuse of models has brought some teachers to the point where they believe that the best kind of pedagogy is to abandon writing models altogether. However, appropriate models are valuable teaching tools in the writing classroom. If models are used to help students understand what is expected within a genre, different ways of approaching a task, and what is considered a good piece of writing within that genre, students will be less likely to simply imitate writing models. The responsibility for helping students see a model as a resource rather than an ideal and understand how to use a writing model lies with the writing instructors.

Learner autonomy is widely recognized as a desirable educational goal in second or foreign language learning. However, the generality of the concept often makes it difficult to either nurture or measure the related traits. The present study focused on learner autonomy in the area of writing, exploring the use of the process approach as a means to foster its development in terms of students' emerging writing skills. The study was conducted in the naturalistic settings of three secondary school ESL writing classrooms in Hong Kong involving 70 student participants. Data gathered quantitatively with a questionnaire and qualitatively through self-assessment forms, learners' journals and case studies suggest that the process approach can reduce students' reliance on the teacher and their tendency to seek help from others, while leading to growth in their metacognitive knowledge about writing and their knowledge of themselves as writers. These developments are all signs of the emergence of learner autonomy in these young ESL writers. Overall, the findings suggest that the process approach can bring about similar changes in young writers despite variations in the cultural backgrounds and teaching beliefs of its implementers. It is argued that the strength of the process approach may lie in the stimulation of the growth of autonomous skills and attitudes in writing in young learners, and such a strength should be recognized by language educators who view learner autonomy as a major educational goal.

Math journals provide students with opportunities to articulate their understanding of math concepts and/or their frustrations with the gaps in those understandings. The use of these journals supports metacognitive thinking to enhance understanding and application. This study examined the use of math journals by fourth grade students as a conduit for critical thinking, reflection, and real-world math application. For this study, student journal entries consisted of identification of a real-life event, narrative of both the problem's description as well as the rationale for choosing the problem, the use of a problem-solving strategy learned during class instruction, and the use of a numeric or pictorial model to arrive at the solution. Upon completion, students shared his/her journal entry with the entire class. Through this research, I witnessed evidence of growth in mathematical understanding and computation, and I saw students make a deeper connection to math's many real-life applications in their own lives.

Reflection is a key component for integrating meaningful collegiate service-learning experiences with a student's personal and professional growth. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to compare two types of reflective journal writing (guided and open-ended) utilized in undergraduate Communication Disorder courses. A comparison of pre- and post-Service-Learning Survey (SLS) data and reflective journal writing samples indicated value for both types of written reflection.

This paper proposes using video-supported reflection to facilitate EFL students' reflective practice of oral presentations. Based on reflective learning theory, four teaching stages are designed and used in an intensive oral presentation training project: creating reflection scenarios, providing reflection scaffolds, guiding collaborative reflection, and summarizing learning gains. Data are collected through students' reflective journals and focus group interviews. Findings indicate that the project has a positive impact on students' reflective abilities and their perceived learning gains. Problems encountered by the students are identified and discussed in light of research and practice on how to support and enhance reflective learning.

In this "Distance Learning" Special Issue, Errol Craig Sull introduces "Try This," a series of articles to assist distance instructors with Overcoming Teaching Challenges. This article "Teaching the Online Upper Level Student," identifies students who for the most part take courses in their major track and have a strong interest to succeed. To keep the students enthusiasm high and class involvement engaged "Try This" offers ten focused approaches the instructor can take, assuring a successful learning experience for the students.

One of the viable ways that reflection can take place is through reflective journal writing. Journal writing allows for greater introspection of a student leaders' growth and development and an understanding of the various dynamics of a leadership experience. This article describes how effective journaling can be fostered in physical education leadership programs. By providing leadership experiences to their students, physical education teachers have the potential to foster the necessary qualities that enable them to be successful in school and in the broader community.

Students must be able to evaluate primary literature, yet few options exist within the undergraduate curriculum to develop the necessary skills. In this article, we offer an adapted journal club that provides students opportunities to critically analyze selected research articles, emphasizing scientific communication, critical thinking, and practical application of coursework. We include the primary instruments of the adapted journal club, teaching tips, and guided implementation recommendations, including tools to pre-designate student roles to examine specific aspects of the article. Using their preclass homework as a guide, students present their respective portions to the class as the class gains a collective understanding of the research design, experimental approach, and relative merits. This student-centric learning approach achieved significant gains in scientific literacy. Our data show a 37% increase in student abilities to analyze study design, a 61% gain in discerning primary from secondary sources, and gains of between 61% and 76% in the confidence to lead content-specific scientific discussions. We present this approach and suggest that grades, self-assessments, and surveys illustrate the benefits of the adapted journal club for the undergraduate learning experience.

This study examined the impact of remix journaling as a new media literacy practice on undergraduate students' engagement and ownership of learning. Using arts-based pedagogy combined with new media literacies, this study chronicles students' perspectives on knowledge-building, expression, and social agency through remix journaling. Findings suggest remix as a contemporary literacy practice that expands and enhances students' critical thinking while cultivating authentic classroom cultures that bridge digital worlds by supporting reader engagement and the development of media literacies. Findings have implications for educational professionals, administrators, librarians, and media specialists seeking low-tech, high impact strategies for cultivating new media literacy practices in their classrooms and school communities.

Reflectivity is regarded as an indispensable component of teacher education. Through a reflective teaching/learning model, pre-service teachers may have the opportunity to become a reflective practitioner and train their students in a more reflective fashion. With this in mind, 12 pre-service teachers were assigned to keep reflective journals for a ten-week practicum period. Each week, they were assigned a new task related to the practicum components involving classroom management, lesson planning, micro-teaching, and teachers' roles. The data obtained from the reflective journals and face-to-face interviews were analysed in accordance with grounded theory including initial and focused coding. The findings suggest that the level of reflectivity of participants mostly remained on the very first level of reflectivity (Recall Level). Upper levels of reflectivity (Rationalization and Reflective Level) were observed to be rather lower than the Recall Level, implying that such reflectivity practices require longer stretches of time to gain the habit of reflective thinking. Also, most of the participants highlighted the contribution of journals to the enhancement of critical reflection.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effectiveness of vocabulary enhancement activities on vocabulary learning in an ESP course. In designing the activities, technical terms on journal entries were chosen for the acquisition of language necessary for the successful implementation of accounting major's professional tasks. The desirable difficulty approach and the four strands principle,focused input, meaning-focused output, language-focused learning and fluency development, were guidelines in combining subject matter and English language learning. To test the result of the activities, the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale was employed to measure students' knowledge of 50 vocabulary items. Subjects of the ESP course in discussion comprised 200 accounting juniors in Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in China. Half of them in Group A read the texts and did matching exercises and translation exercises. The other half in Group B read the texts and practiced journal entry activity, targeting at accounting concepts and terminologies. The results revealed that Group B gained better results than Group A at a post-test. After the test a reflection on the vocabulary activities was gathered among the participants of Group B. The feedback further proved that the students did benefit from the enhancement activities on selected technical terms.

Much recent STEM research indicates that course integration improves the student learning experience and fosters stronger connections among concepts and skills; this study attempts to evaluate whether or not students learn the design process more fully in the integrated version of a required first-year course, Design Thinking in Technology. Drawing from an ongoing assessment of an Integrated First-Year Experience at Purdue University, this article reports on the challenges of teaching design thinking and analyzes whether students in an interdisciplinary course integration can demonstrate the work of their design processes more completely and effectively compared to students in a non-integrated version of the course. We employ a modified version of the Engineering Design Process Portfolio Scoring Rubric (EDPPSR) as a method of evaluating students' design portfolios. Our initial and follow-up analyses show that students in both versions of the course struggle to complete design journal assignments satisfactorily. We assess and analyze the impact of STEM-humanities integration on students' abilities to document and contextualize the design process using journals, and also offer discussion and suggestions about our findings.

Objective: This study investigated the practices and impact of interdisciplinary faculty at a flagship university in the American Southwest who were engaged in the process of redesigning curriculum in order to center candidates on what they need to know and do as culturally competent school leaders. Method: Participants were 31 interdisciplinary faculty involved in preparing candidates for leadership in early childhood and elementary and secondary education, in diverse contexts including high need and Native American-serving schools. The qualitative study utilized document analysis of faculty's multi-year work in developing the capacity of candidates to increase opportunities for historically marginalized students. An external evaluation was conducted with focus groups of faculty and graduate students along with a follow-up discourse analysis of student reflective journals. Results: The redesign process involved several phases culminating in recommendations and next steps for preparing candidates to redress inequitable conditions and create a more hopeful future for America's diverse students. Conclusions: Developing the capacity of culturally competent leaders requires a fundamental change in the way institutions prepare candidates for equity and social justice work. Further research is needed to demonstrate that recommended activities and interventions will improve the cultural competence of educational leaders and make opportunity equity a reality for all children.

In the article "No Need to Reinvent the Wheel: Reading Instruction in a Time of Change" published in "English in Texas" in 2017, the authors, Ann D. David and Katrina Jansky, viewed reading instruction through five touchstones: time, choice, relevance, talk, and routines and rituals. This article expands on those touchstones by examining writing instruction, offering classroom practices that can support a diverse range of student writers and bring back joy and pleasure to the writing classroom.

Guided Inquiry (GI) is an emerging pedagogy based on the Information Search Process (ISP), a research-based information-literacy model identified by Carol C. Kuhlthau (1985, 1988a, 1988b, 1988c, 1989b) and operationalized by the Guided Inquiry Design (GID) process (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, and Caspari 2007, 2012, 2015). This study investigated perceptions and use of GI by Year 9 students at an Australian independent private school engaged in an inquiry unit in their Personal Development, Health, and Physical Education class focused on "Overcoming Adversity." Two academic researchers and the school librarian collaborated on this mixed-methods study collecting data from survey questionnaires, focus-group interviews, and students' work in digital inquiry process journals and final product presentations. Findings indicate students understand important elements of the GID process, including its independent nature, structure, and pacing through stages, and the element of choice. However, they differ on whether these aspects have a positive or negative effect on their learning and research process. An implication for GI practice from this study is a greater focus on allowing students independence and to proceed at their own pace, as expressed in a student's comment and the title of this paper: "Just let me go at it."

According to our experience, facilitating online reflective writing via Facebook motivates students to improve their writing skills and reflective thinking. Six students and a teacher from an urban school in the northern region of Malaysia were involved in this study. The qualitative data in the form of online archives were categorized as "reflection-in-action" (feedback and self-correction) based on Garrison et al.'s (2000) cognitive presence. Additionally, "reflection-on-action" which comprised the students' reflective journal demonstrated their thoughts and feelings while engaged in the Facebook environment. Data suggested that feedback only related to grammar and sentence structures (micro aspects). There was no feedback relating to organization and content (macro aspects). The reflective journal revealed that Facebook can be considered as a successful platform to enhance students' narrative writing. The findings of this study have implications for teaching and learning activities in web-based environments.

Pre-service teacher preparation in the United States is becoming progressively more challenging with respect to the demands on teachers. This study examined the impact of tutoring approach on pre-service teachers? skills to work with English language learners through a qualitative research design. Content analysis was used at the thematic level on student journals written to accompany the semester-long experience of tutoring. Thirty pre-service teachers participated and data was collected from 300 written journal reflections for two semesters. Overall, the pre-service teachers gained an understanding of challenges of working ELLs and other positive impacts through tutoring. The findings suggest that pre-service teachers have perceived value of the use of tutoring approach in the teacher preparation program, use of strategies during field-based experiences, instructional realizations, cultural sensitivity, and professionalism. This paper concluded by discussing the need for teacher education program to assist pre-service teachers to assimilate pedagogies and apply through a tutoring approach.

This qualitative research study employs a teacher action research methodology to study how a teacher develops and implements a critical race pedagogy (CRP) curriculum. CRP pairs the liberatory practices of critical pedagogy (Friere, 1970), such a problem-posing classroom and praxis, with the maxims of critical race theory (Delgado & Stefancic, 2000). Situated in a high school teacher pipeline program, this study details how a teacher-researcher developed a curriculum focused on teaching about racial injustice and educational inequality to a group of minoritized youth interested in the teaching profession. The research outlines key levers in her classroom, such as building a classroom community, selecting a range of critical texts, and harnessing dialogue to co-construct knowledge. The author also reflects on challenges that surfaced when moving from theory to practice, such as democratizing the classroom and the unfinished nature on becoming, and offers insights that contribute to the field of teachers-researchers interested in bolstering young people's racial consciousness in schools.