The picture on the front of this book is an illustration for Totakahini: The tale of the parrot, by Rabindranath Tagore, in which he satirized education as a magnificent golden cage. Opening the Cage addresses mathematics education as a complex socio-political phenomenon, exploring the vast terrain that spans critique and politics. Opening the Cage includes contributions from educators writing critically about mathematics education in diverse contexts. They demonstrate that mathematics education is politics, they investigate borderland positions, they address the nexus of mathematics, education, and power, and they explore educational possibilities. Mathematics education is not a free enterprise. It is carried on behind bars created by economic, political, and social demands. This cage might not be as magnificent as that in Tagore's fable. But it is strong. Opening the cage is a critical and political challenge, and we may be surprised to see what emerges.

This book presents perspectives on the knowledge creation metaphor of learning, and elaborates the trialogical approach to learning. The knowledge creation metaphor differs from both the acquisition and the participation metaphors. In a nutshell trialogical approaches seek to engage learners in joint work with shared objects and artefacts mediated by collaboration technology. The theoretical underpinnings stem from different origins, including Bereiter and Scardamalia's theory on knowledge building and Engeström's activity theory. The authors in this collection introduce key concepts and techniques, explain tools designed and developed to support knowledge creation, and report results from case studies in specific contexts. The book chapters integrate theoretical, methodological, empirical and technological research, to elaborate the empirical findings and to explain the design of the knowledge creation tools.

A recurrent trope in education is the gap that exists between theory, taught at the university, and praxis, what teachers do in classrooms. How might one bridge this inevitable gap if new teachers are asked to learn (to talk) about teaching rather than to teach? In response to this challenging question, the two authors of this book have developed coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing, two forms of praxis that allow very different stakeholders to teach and subsequently to reflect together about their teaching. The authors have developed these forms of praxis not by theorizing and then implementing them, but by working at the elbow of new and experienced teachers, students, supervisors, and department heads. Coteaching, which occurs when two or more teachers teach together, supports learning to teach while improving student achievement. Cogenerative dialogues are conversations among all those who have been present in a lesson; they ensure that what was learned while coteaching is beneficial for all coteachers and learners. Tobin and Roth describe the many ways coteaching and cogenerative dialogues are used to improve learning environments--dramatically improving teaching and learning across cultural borders defined by race, ethnicity, gender, and language. Teaching to Learn is written for science educators and teacher educators along the professional continuum: new and practicing teachers, graduate students, professors, researchers, curriculum developers, evaluation consultants, science supervisors, school administrators, and policy makers. Thick ethnographic descriptions and specific suggestions provide readers access to resources to get started and continue their journeys along a variety of professional trajectories.

The challenge of how to integrate art and technology in education faces educators all around the world. Approaches for addressing this challenge in ways that enhance the learner's educational experience can be found in different cultures and in different disciplines. Embracing the idea of collaboration among art and technology educators and practitioners, was what Menano and Fidalgo proposed to the authors of the chapters in this book. This book presents ideas that help educators to re-evaluate and re-think how to approach art and technology in the educational setting and offers solutions to develop new experiences for students and communities. Each chapter presents teaching practices and successful activities that address the challenges facing art and technology education professionals. Along with descriptions of the learners, the settings, the schools and the communities in which they work, the authors share their thoughts and concerns about the changing educational landscape around them. The authors are respected and experienced instructors who are engaged with the use of art and technology and each chapter reflects the authors' diverse practices, their students at different educational levels, and the different educational and socio-cultural contexts in which the learning and teaching takes place. The authors hope that the varied approaches presented in this book will motivate educators to connect beyond the classroom as well as to embrace new strategies and think more creatively and broadly about educational practices.

Issues in Coursebook Evaluation takes a theory to practice approach with emphasis on theoretical underpinnings that lead into practical aspects of the processes of evaluating English language coursebooks. The ten reader-friendly chapters contributed by outstanding scholars cover fundamental concepts in book evaluation which turn this work to a valuable resource book in applied linguistics. The topics covered include the need to evaluate books (why, who, how and when), language learners' needs, evaluating language and content of coursebooks, evaluating teaching aids, intercultural and socio-cultural perspectives in coursebooks and their evaluation, how to evaluate the authenticity of conversations in ESL textbooks, evaluating ESP textbooks, e-textbook evaluation, and the influence of research on materials evaluation. Contributors are: Maryam Azarnoosh, Saleh Al-Busaidi, Darío Luis Banegas, Martin Cortazzi, Akram Faravani, Lixian Jin, Hamid Reza Kargozari, Mahboobeh Khosrojerdi, Thom Kiddle, Jayakaran Mukundan, Vahid Nimehchisalem, Golnaz Peyvandi, Seyed Ali Rezvani Kalajahi, Carlos Rico-Troncoso, Lilia Savova, Abdolvahed Zarifi, and Mitra Zeraatpishe.

Place pedagogy change is a work of creative experimentation in which we explore the ways in which pedagogies of place can enable the relational learning of connections between people, places and communities. In adding the element of place to the dynamic relations between teacher, learner, and knowledge, we articulate a pedagogy of ethical uncertainty. Ethical refers to our mutual responsibilities to others and to the more-than-human world, and uncertainty to the unpredictability inherent in our relationship with this world. In Place pedagogy change, we examine the nature of such innovative pedagogies as they emerged across the curriculum from early childhood to school and community education, and in teacher education. The book will provide a useful text for teachers and teacher eductors wishing to address questions of place and sustainability in educational research and practice.

The book consists of 20 chapters. Each chapter focuses on a certain issue related to the relevance of chemistry education.

This book shares a collection of novel ways to re-conceptualize and envision the moral imperatives of consumption, thereby providing invigorating insights for future dialogue and intellectual and social action. It privileges a consumer moral leadership imperative, which augments the conventional management imperatives of sustainability, ethics, simplicity and environmental integrity. There are 13 chapters, including first-ever discussions of non-violent consumption, transdisciplinary consumption, consumer moral adulthood, integral informed consumption, conscious and mindful consumption, biomimicry informed consumption, and consumer moral leadership as a new intellectual construct. The book strives to intellectually and philosophically challenge and reframe the act, culture and ideology of consuming. The intent is to foster new hope that leads to differently informed activism and to provocative research, policy, entrepreneurial and educational initiatives that favour the human condition, the collective human family and interconnected integrity. This book strives to move consumers from managing for efficiency to leading for moral efficacy, the ability to use their existing moral capacities to deal with moral challenges in the marketplace. The very core of what it means to be a morally responsible member of the human family is challenged and re-framed through the lens of consumer moral leadership.

The book contributes to improving teaching and learning in a few ways: first, it provides in-service teachers with step-by-step, ready-to-use strategies that facilitate their students' comprehension and use of content area reading material; second, it aims to help pre-service teachers learn to implement hands-on lessons for their content area; third, apart from strategies offered to the content area teachers in the mainstream, the book also provides teachers of English language learners with strategies that address the literacy needs of their diverse students. "The authors in this collection offer teachers ways to deepen students' reading and writing engagement within particular content areas. These thoughtful lessons are ready to be implemented immediately in the classroom." - Denise N. Morgan, Ph.D., Kent State University "This book was created for teachers by teachers. It is filled with creative and engaging strategies, each having a step-by-step guide for implementation to promote student learning. Many of the strategies designed for specific content instruction can be modified for use across the curriculum. It is a refreshing compilation of instructional approaches and a valuable resource for both novice and veteran teachers." - Maria G. Dove, Ed.D., Molloy College "The book is not only a useful teaching manual for teachers in the USA, but also a helpful instructional guide for teachers from other cultures. Particularly for the last section on ESL/EFL learners, it provides teachers in the field with inspirational activities." - Haihua Wang, Ph.D., Dalian Maritime University

This book presents perspectives on the knowledge creation metaphor of learning, and elaborates the trialogical approach to learning. The knowledge creation metaphor differs from both the acquisition and the participation metaphors. In a nutshell trialogical approaches seek to engage learners in joint work with shared objects and artefacts mediated by collaboration technology. The theoretical underpinnings stem from different origins, including Bereiter and Scardamalia's theory on knowledge building and Engeström's activity theory. The authors in this collection introduce key concepts and techniques, explain tools designed and developed to support knowledge creation, and report results from case studies in specific contexts. The book chapters integrate theoretical, methodological, empirical and technological research, to elaborate the empirical findings and to explain the design of the knowledge creation tools.

What is the connection between finding the amount of acid needed to reach the desired concentration of a chemical solution, checking divisibility by a two-digit prime number, and maintaining the perimeter of a polygon while reducing its area? The simple answer is the title of this book. The world is an interplay of variation and constancy--a medley of differences and similarities--and this change and invariance is, largely, a language of science and mathematics. This book proposes a unique approach for developing mathematical insight through the perspective of change and invariance as it applies to the properties of numbers and shapes. After a short introductory chapter, each of the following chapters presents a series of evolving activities for students that focus on a specific aspect of interplay between change and invariance. Each activity is accompanied by detailed mathematical explanations and a didactic discussion. The assignments start with tasks familiar from the school curriculum, but progress beyond the menial to lead to sophisticated generalizations. Further activities are suggested to augment the chapter's theme. Some examples: "How to represent all the integers from zero to 1000 using ten fingers?", "How to win at the game of Nim?", "Why do different square lattice polygons with the same area often have the same perimeter?"

This book presents an international perspective of the influence of educational context on science education. The focus is on the interactions between curriculum development and implementation, particularly in non-Western and non-English-speaking contexts (i.e., outside the UK, USA, Australia, NZ, etc. ). An important and distinguishing feature of the book is that it draws upon the experiences and research from local experts from an extremely diverse cohort across the world (26 countries in total). The book addresses topics such as: curriculum development; research or evaluation of an implemented curriculum; discussion of pressures driving curriculum reform or implementation of new curricula (e. g., technology or environmental education); the influence of political, cultural, societal or religious mores on education; governmental or ministerial drives for curriculum reform; economic or other pressures driving curriculum reform; the influence of external assessment regimes on curriculum; and so on.

In this book, the reader is invited to enter a strange world in which you can tell the age of the captain by counting the animals on his ship, where runners do not get tired, and where water gets hotter when you add it to other water. It is the world of a curious genre, known as "word problems" or "story problems". It originated in the ancient civilizations of Egypt, China, and India, and is the subject of daily rituals among students and teachers in mathematics classrooms all around the world. An international group of scholars with a shared interest in this phenomenon explore multiple aspects of this world from multiple perspectives. These discussions take us deep into philosophical issues of the relationships between words, mathematical systems, and the physical and social worlds we all inhabit. Empirical investigations are reported that throw light on how students and their teachers experience and interpret this activity, raising profound questions about the nature and purposes of mathematics teaching/learning in general and how it could be improved.

The space is outdoors. The experience is personal and the journey can be solitary or take place in groups. Informal or formal the places visited are sites of learning. Locked in memory our experiences in the outdoors are a constant source of wonderment and food to replenish our sense of wellbeing. Our experiences in the outdoors can endure in the abstract as ideas for developing a sense of a well lived life. They can also draw us back to places and reenergise the body. Physical and emotional wellbeing collides in the unexpected events that flourish in the outdoors. Our readiness for enjoyment and personal development are subjective states which this book challenges. Traversing the landscape of the outdoors the collection of chapters contained range from the theoretical to the practical including strategies for teaching and learning that are transdisciplinary. With ideas for practitioners as well as thoughtful reading for readers of diverse ages and interests this book includes contributions from Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, United Kingdom and Canada. Foreword by Peter Hay.

Critical Literacies in Action: Social Perspectives and Teaching Practices asks how educators can become more experienced in order to truly support literacy, particularly for children of poverty or for those who have been labeled "at-risk". This is especially important in current times, since a literate individual is one who is more successfully able to situate him- or herself within a continuum of lifelong learning in order to fulfill personal goals and to participate fully within the wider societyal context. Although the word "literacy" has been with us for a very long time, the very meaning of the term itself has become increasingly complex due to a multiplicity of factors. At least in part, this complexity is a function of expanding and interconnecting notions of what it is that constitutes modern literacy as well as the increasingly technological nature of the world within which individuals live and learn. As such, a new horizon in literacy research has appeared, promising to renegotiate traditional definitions of the term "literate" and what it means to be critically literate in this increasingly complex world. Definitions of literacy have also evolved along with the evolution of the computer. Currently, the term "literacy" describes a commitment to and participation in a multiplicity of meaning making systems, many of which exhibit ever-greater degrees of interdependence with one another. The term "Critical Literacy" has come into use relatively recently and is generally regarded as a sub-category of Critical Pedagogy--"Critical" because it promotes an agenda for positive social change.

What's a Cellphilm? explores cellphone video production for its contributions to participatory visual research. There is a rich history of integrating participants' videos into community-based research and activism. However, a reliance on camcorders and digital cameras has come under criticism for exacerbating unequal power relations between researchers and their collaborators. Using cellphones in participatory visual research suggests a new way forward by working with accessible, everyday technology and integrating existing media practices. Cellphones are everywhere these days. People use mobile technology to visually document and share their lives. This new era of democratised media practices inspired Jonathan Dockney and Keyan Tomaselli to coin the term cellphilm (cellphone ] film). The term signals the coming together of different technologies on one handheld device and the emerging media culture based on people's use of cellphones to create, share, and watch media. Chapters present practical examples of cellphilm research conducted in Canada, Hong Kong, Mexico, the Netherlands and South Africa. Together these contributions consider several important methodological questions, such as: Is cellphilming a new research method or is it re-packaged participatory video? What theories inform the analysis of cellphilms? What might the significance of frequent advancements in cellphone technology be on cellphilms? How does our existing use of cellphones inform the research process and cellphilm aesthetics? What are the ethical dimensions of cellphilm use, dissemination, and archiving? These questions are taken up from interdisciplinary perspectives by established and new academic contributors from education, Indigenous studies, communication, film and media studies.

Current interest in semiotics is undoubtedly related to our increasing awareness that our manners of thinking and acting in our world are deeply indebted to a variety of signs and sign systems (language included) that surround us. Since mathematics is something that we accomplish through written, oral, bodily and other signs, semiotics appears well suited to furthering our understanding of the mathematical processes of thinking, symbolizing and communicating. Resorting to different semiotic perspectives (e. g., Peirce's, Vygotsky's, Saussure's), the authors of this book deal with questions about the teaching and learning of mathematics as well as the history and epistemology of the discipline. Mathematics discourse and thinking and the technologically-mediated self of mathematical cultural practices are examined through key concepts such as metaphor, intentionality, gestures, interaction, sign-use, and meaning. The cover picture comes from Jacob Leupold's (1727) Theatrum Arithmetico-Geometrico. It conveys the cultural, historical, and embodied aspects of mathematical thinking variously emphasized by the contributors of this book.

This book shares a collection of novel ways to re-conceptualize and envision the moral imperatives of consumption, thereby providing invigorating insights for future dialogue and intellectual and social action. It privileges a consumer moral leadership imperative, which augments the conventional management imperatives of sustainability, ethics, simplicity and environmental integrity. There are 13 chapters, including first-ever discussions of non-violent consumption, transdisciplinary consumption, consumer moral adulthood, integral informed consumption, conscious and mindful consumption, biomimicry informed consumption, and consumer moral leadership as a new intellectual construct. The book strives to intellectually and philosophically challenge and reframe the act, culture and ideology of consuming. The intent is to foster new hope that leads to differently informed activism and to provocative research, policy, entrepreneurial and educational initiatives that favour the human condition, the collective human family and interconnected integrity. This book strives to move consumers from managing for efficiency to leading for moral efficacy, the ability to use their existing moral capacities to deal with moral challenges in the marketplace. The very core of what it means to be a morally responsible member of the human family is challenged and re-framed through the lens of consumer moral leadership.

Issues in Materials Development provides readers with theoretical foundations and practical aspects of designing materials for EFL/ESL contexts. It starts with discussing some basic and preliminary principles of materials design followed by scrutinizing critical issues in materials development in an objective and systematic way. This ranges from considering learners' needs, adopting, adapting, selection, and gradation of materials to the specific focus of the book on developing various types of materials for the four language skills, pronunciation, ESP vocabulary, and computer assisted language learning materials. Authenticity of materials to be designed and the inclusion of affective factors to develop motivating materials to engage language learners, in addition to features of materials design at a universal level are other areas to read about. This book finally tries to open new horizons and possible futuristic approaches to improve today's ELT materials.

This book brings together recent research on interpersonal relationships in education from a variety of perspectives including research from Europe, North America and Australia. The work clearly demonstrates that positive teacher-student relationships can contribute to student learning in classrooms of various types. Productive learning environments are characterized by supportive and warm interactions throughout the class: teacher-student and student-student. Similarly, at the school level, teacher learning thrives when there are positive and mentoring interrelationships among professional colleagues. Work on this book began with a series of formative presentations at the second International Conference on Interpersonal Relationships in Education (ICIRE 2012) held in Vancouver, Canada, an event that included among others, keynote addresses by David Berliner, Andrew Martin and Mieke Brekelmans. Further collaboration and peer review by the editorial team resulted in the collection of original research that this book comprises. The volume (while eclectic) demonstrates how constructive learning environment relationships can be developed and sustained in a variety of settings. Chapter contributions come from a range of fields including educational and social psychology, teacher and school effectiveness research, communication and language studies, and a variety of related fields. Together, they cover the important influence of the relationships of teachers with individual students, relationships among peers, and the relationships between teachers and their professional colleagues.