The Politics of Curriculum Development

Many free online tools exist to complement algebraic instruction at the middle school level. This article presents findings that analyzed the features of algebraic tools to support learning. The findings can help teachers select appropriate tools to facilitate specific topics.     

Facilitating Discussions: Skills for Teachers and Students

In this article, the author addresses the problem of content knowledge dominating the school curriculum and the resultant marginalization of sociocivic and moral dispositions. Given the problems associated with teaching dispositions directly, the author offers four curricular aims that collectively develop the attitudes required of democratic citizens through deliberate employment in daily curriculum planning.     

Schools as learning communities: Building capacity through network learning

This article reports on the results from a study which investigated the impact of guidance given in writing tasks on children's writing performance. Six hundred eleven year olds completed writing tasks with varying content and structural support and their writing was analysed for purpose and organisation, style, spelling, clause structure, word class, paragraphing and punctuation. The aim was to find out if support facilitated better writing and if the type of support had differing effects. The findings suggested that the support did not significantly affect performance in narrative and persuasive writing. Possible implications and initial indications from a follow-up qualitative study of children's thinking are discussed.