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Researchers have expressed concern about the state of STEM education. To improve this situation, new pedagogies, such as blended learning, have been proposed and tested. The last decade has seen an increase in the use of blended learning to support learning; however, the effect of blended learning on learning remains unclear and often mixed. The two studies in this paper draw on data from pre-university science students in the following courses: (1) Electricity and Magnetism (E&M) and (2) Waves, Optics & Modern Physics (Waves). In study 1, the treatment group (blended learning coupled with two-stage quizzes & peer formative feedback) performed significantly higher than the control group (lecture format with online homework & instant feedback) in the standardized final exam. In contrast, in study 2, there was a non-significant main effect of groups, indicating that the treatment group (blended learning with online homework & instant feedback) and the control group (lecture format with online homework & instant feedback) performed similarly in the standardized final exam. The finding of study 1 suggests that the effect of an instructional pedagogical framework embedded in a blended learning context improves performance in STEM education. Whereas the finding of study 2 suggests that a blended learning context without incorporating any instructional framework or support for cognition other than the lecture is comparable to a traditional face-to-face course.

Knowledge Building is approached in this study from an organizational perspective, with a focus on the nature of school-university-government partnerships to support research-based educational innovation. The paper starts with an overview of what is known about effective partnerships and elaborates a conceptual framework for Knowledge Building partnerships based on a review of literature and two case studies of school-university-government partnerships. In one case, a Ministry of Education wanted to bring more vitality into schools of small remote villages, and in the other case another Ministry of Education wanted to renew its school-based international cooperation profile. Emerging from this work is a three-component model for going to scale with Knowledge Building partnerships: Knowledge Building as a shared vision; symmetric knowledge advancement; and multi-level, research-based innovation. Characteristics of, and conditions for, effective partnerships for Knowledge Building are elaborated, and an emerging model is developed to help communities establish effective partnerships and contribute to this evolving model. (Contains 1 figure.)

This study explored how the Internet bridges theory and practice. Teacher educators, teachers, and prospective teachers used collaborative technologies to design networked communities embedded in three distinct perspectives: the networked learning community, the networked community of practice, and the knowledge building community. Networked communities prompted the development of solutions for integration of information and communication technologies (ICTs) at the elementary, secondary, and post-secondary levels. These communities provide opportunities for sustained theory-practice dialogue between teachers at different stages of their professional development and opportunities for "boundary spanning" between courses, practica, pre- and in-service education, graduate seminars, and collaborative research activities. (Contains 3 tables and 2 notes.)

Increasingly, teacher involvement in collaborative design of curriculum is viewed as a form of professional development. However, the research base for this stance is limited. While it is assumed that the activities teachers undertake during collaborative design of curricular materials can be beneficial for teacher learning, only a few studies involving such efforts exist. Additionally many lack specific theoretical frameworks for robust investigation of teacher learning by design. The situative perspective articulated by Greeno et al. (1998) and third-generation activity theory as developed by Engeström (1987) constitute useful conceptual frameworks to describe and investigate teacher learning by collaborative design. In this contribution, three key features derived from these two theories, "situatedness," "agency" and the "cyclical nature of learning and change," are used to describe three cases of collaborative design in three different settings. Grounded on this theoretical basis and a synthesis of the three case descriptions, we propose an empirically and theoretically informed agenda for studying teacher learning by collaborative design.

Current rhetoric about the educational "impact" of new information and communication technologies (ICT) often masks the complex reality in which it is educators' decisions and practices with ICT that result in change and constitute the impact. In communities of interpretation, teachers and researchers can collaborate to construct knowledge of emerging technology practices that are transforming teaching and learning. (SV)

The purpose of this article is to examine technology leadership issues and challenges with an emphasis on TeleLearning Professional Development Schools. A qualitative analysis of professional educators' practices as early adopters of information and communication technologies (ICTs) was conducted. Ethnographic data were gathered from a broad variety of activities organized or supported by the TeleLearning Network of Centres of Excellence (Canada, 1995–2002). Research results point to 1. themes indicating that substantive technology leadership is manifest (leadership for partnership, leadership for learning to teach with ICTs, and leadership in research for innovation), 2. leadership issues at different levels of integration of ICTs, and 3. creative tensions and related challenges [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]