The purpose of this 1-year case study was to understand how 5 elementary school teachers in an inner-city school foster social inclusion. Through classroom observations and interviews, the study examined the variations of classroom practices the teachers used to create inclusive environments, the challenges they faced in the process, and the strategies they developed to address these challenges. How their work in the classroom interacted with the school's organizational structures was also explored. Three concepts frame the study: a broad conception of social inclusion that addresses multiple aims for creating an environment of belonging and takes students of all social identities into account; a detailed conception of the practice of social inclusion from a range of theoretical perspectives and teachers' experiences; and a situated conception of context that interrelates the classroom with the school and the community. Three dimensions of pedagogy—content-based practices, relations, and structures—are used to identify and compare principles of inclusive practice. The study portrays the interactions of daily classroom life through cross-case analysis and reveals the complex decision-making processes that teachers use to foster social inclusion. This study builds on growing scholarship in the field of social inclusion in education (Ainscow et al., 2006; Dei, 1996a; Kosnik & Beck, 2009; Kumashiro, 2002; Topping & Maloney, 2005) and on the increased interest in inclusive pedagogical practices. The in-depth portraits of the teachers’ classroom practices are compared to literature in 4 areas: citizen-based pedagogy, culture-based pedagogy, race-based pedagogy, and anti-oppression pedagogy. The teachers’ practices are analyzed in relation to 2 principles of social inclusion: connecting content to students’ lives and creating mutually supportive social spaces. The study revealed that the participants' practices were mainly associated with pedagogies based on citizenship and culture, with some connections to race-based and anti-oppression pedagogies. What differentiates this study from most other studies in this area is its detailed attention to the dynamic complexity of applying principles of social inclusion to practice. The portraits offer insights into inclusive work in classrooms that will benefit teachers, teacher educators, and researchers interested in expanding the field of social inclusion in education.

This design-based research study investigates the development of pedagogical content knowledge among nine teacher-participants (N = 9) in three design phases. PCK is a particular type of teacher knowledge that addresses not only the teacher’s understanding of the content to be instructed, but also ways of how to teach that content effectively. This knowledge has been well documented over several decades, and is seen as central to teacher expertise. However, its actual development has been difficult for researchers to investigate. This study offers a detailed perspective on how teachers developed PCK with their engagement in lesson planning and enactment of a project-based technology-enhanced lesson. The study includes two specific interventions designed to enhance teachers’ development of PCK: (1) scaffolded reflection that occurs throughout the practices; and (2) peer-exchange of lesson plans, enactment ideas, and completed reflections. The findings demonstrate that teachers improve their planning and enactment of project-based technology-enhanced lessons with scaffolded reflection and peer exchange. Positive correlations were seen between teachers’ engagement in the reflections and the quality of their lesson planning. Teachers who participated more deeply in the scaffolded reflections were able to understand how their lesson plans and enactment patterns fostered student understanding of relevant science concepts. Positive correlations were also seen between community influence and teacher lesson plans and enactment. Additionally, positive correlations were confirmed between teachers’ level of participation in the peer exchange activities and the quality of their lesson planning and enactments. Teachers who contributed more deeply within the online and face-to-face peer community meetings benefited from the different perspectives of their peers about student learning and the best ways to succeed with project-based instruction. This study allowed some insight into how PCK develops as a result of teachers’ engagement in the complex set of activities that constitute the practices of lesson planning and enactment. The primary implication of this study is that engaging teachers in scaffolded reflections and peer exchange can be a valuable in-service professional development activity. A methodological strength is derived from an approach to coding teachers’ lesson planning and enactment according to an activity systems perspective, drawing on a spectrum of data sources (e.g., wiki-based reflections, planning artefacts, videotaped classroom enactments). Teacher learning—particularly the development of PCK—is recognized as critical in promoting student understanding of science concepts. This dissertation lays out a possible foundation for professional development models that promote effective teacher learning.

This design-based study was the first empirical investigation of a new model of learning and instruction called Knowledge Community and Inquiry (KCI). In KCI, students are engaged as a learning community as they work on scaffolded inquiry activities that target specific science learning objectives. Although community-oriented approaches have been successful at the elementary level, there has been relatively little uptake of such methods at the secondary school level – particularly in science. The pedagogical framework of KCI addresses the challenges of community models by blending established inquiry based approaches with community-oriented pedagogy. This dissertation tested the validity of KCI by designing, implementing, and empirically evaluating a curriculum based on the KCI model. This was achieved through curriculum trials involving two separate cohorts of grade-ten biology students (n = 102; n = 112). The first implementation consisted of a two-week physiology lesson that engaged students in co-authoring wiki artifacts about human system diseases, which students then used as a resource for solving medical case studies. The second implementation, an eight-week lesson on Canada's biodiversity, was a deeper application of the model, and focused on students' collaborative processes during the construction of their wiki-based knowledge repository. In both cases, the curriculum was evaluated according to its design, enactment, and learning outputs, as evidenced by students' knowledge artifacts and performance on the final exam. Technology scaffolds ensured that students focused on the physiology and biodiversity science curriculum expectations. Analyses of the data revealed that KCI engaged students in collaborative learning processes that were characteristic of a knowledge community. Additionally, final exam scores demonstrated increased learning performance when compared to those from previous years where students did not participate in KCI. The findings from this research provide the first empirical support for KCI, and demonstrate its potential for engaging secondary science students in the kinds of collaborative inquiry processes of authentic knowledge communities. This dissertation provides insight into the conditions necessary for such engagement, and contributes design recommendations for blending knowledge community and inquiry in secondary school science curriculum.

Children in Taiwan start their English classes in grade three. As they progress through the grades, they generally do not demonstrate high English proficiency. In addition, they also gradually lose their interest in learning English (“Education Minister,” 2009). To respond to the problem of achievement and motivation related to learning English, the Picture Word Inductive Model and Cooperative Learning were integrated as an alternative approach to the current instructional method in order to more effectively improve the Taiwanese elementary learners’ English literacy and highly motivate their interest in acquiring a foreign language. The focus of this study was to discover the participating teachers’ and students’ perspectives toward this new teaching approach and to understand the difficulties they encounter during the process of initiating and implementing an educational change. This eleven-month qualitative study involved three elementary English teachers and their 71 students from grades 4, 5 and 6 as participants. The data were collected through field notes from onsite classroom observations, teachers’ weekly reflective journals, in-class video recordings, and transcripts of teachers’ monthly meetings and personal interviews with the participants. Although one teacher and her students had to withdraw from the study because of intense pressure from school authorities and parents, the results of this study indicate that the remaining teachers and students highly recommended implementing this alternative approach in English classes and believed that this new way of teaching not only helped students become more autonomous and responsible for their own learning, but also provided them with more opportunities to interact with their peers. Although having doubts about this new approach at the beginning of the study and encountering difficulties during the process of implementation, the two teachers reported that their students’ English vocabulary had increased and they were able to compose meaningful English paragraphs as a result of this non-traditional strategy. The students also revealed that their motivation toward learning English had improved. Furthermore, the results show that support from school authorities and parents is essential to the initiation and maintenance of a change in education settings.

This study investigated grammatical difficulty from the perspective of second language (L2) learners in relation to their overall L2 proficiency and L2 performance and knowledge. The design included the administration of a student questionnaire, an interview, a proficiency test, and oral production and metalinguistic tasks. The proficiency test and questionnaire were administered to 277 university-level Chinese EFL learners in Taiwan. The questionnaire explored learners’ perceptions of grammatical difficulty of 20 English grammar features. Thirty of the students who completed the questionnaire met with the researcher individually to complete a grammatical difficulty ranking activity, 2 grammar exercises and 2 stimulated recalls, all of which aimed to further explore why the learners considered the selected features to be more (or less) difficult for them to learn. The oral production tasks were administered to 27 of the students who completed the questionnaire. The metalinguistic task was administered to 185 of the students who participated in the questionnaire survey. The questionnaire results indicate that, overall, the participants did not perceive the 20 target features to be difficult to learn. Notwithstanding, the ranking results of the questionnaire suggest that learners’ perceptions of grammatical difficulty are based on whether the rules to describe the formation of language features are easy or difficult to articulate. The qualitative results show that the learners’ perceptions of grammatical difficulty were influenced by several factors including their L2 knowledge, L2 grammar learning experience, and L1 knowledge, all of which were examined with reference to syntactic, semantic, and/or pragmatic levels. In terms of the relationship between learners’ perceptions of grammatical difficulty and their overall L2 proficiency, results show that learners’ perceptions of grammatical difficulty do not vary at the syntactic level, but that there is some variation at the pragmatic level. Regarding the relationship between learners’ perceptions of grammatical difficulty and their L2 knowledge, results suggest that learners’ perceptions of grammatical difficulty vary according to their implicit/explicit knowledge of the features in question; at the explicit knowledge level, the feature perceived to be less difficult to learn is used more accurately, while at the implicit knowledge level, this is not the case.

This research examined a policy developed by a school board and explored the successes and challenges of implementing a Sport Academy in a secondary school in Ontario. The Sport Academy‟s Principal and teaching staff were interviewed about funding, admission criteria, staffing, equity and student engagement. When this program was established, there were concerns that it would appear to be elitist and recruit highly academic students and athletic overachievers. However, the model and programming available to students might actually provide more opportunities, course options and flexible programming to students. The issues raised by the school‟s Principal and the Sport Academy teachers capture some of the political and practical problems that arise during the development of an innovative program.

This study investigated grammatical difficulty from the perspective of second language (L2) learners in relation to their overall L2 proficiency and L2 performance and knowledge. The design included the administration of a student questionnaire, an interview, a proficiency test, and oral production and metalinguistic tasks. The proficiency test and questionnaire were administered to 277 university-level Chinese EFL learners in Taiwan. The questionnaire explored learners’ perceptions of grammatical difficulty of 20 English grammar features. Thirty of the students who completed the questionnaire met with the researcher individually to complete a grammatical difficulty ranking activity, 2 grammar exercises and 2 stimulated recalls, all of which aimed to further explore why the learners considered the selected features to be more (or less) difficult for them to learn. The oral production tasks were administered to 27 of the students who completed the questionnaire. The metalinguistic task was administered to 185 of the students who participated in the questionnaire survey. The questionnaire results indicate that, overall, the participants did not perceive the 20 target features to be difficult to learn. Notwithstanding, the ranking results of the questionnaire suggest that learners’ perceptions of grammatical difficulty are based on whether the rules to describe the formation of language features are easy or difficult to articulate. The qualitative results show that the learners’ perceptions of grammatical difficulty were influenced by several factors including their L2 knowledge, L2 grammar learning experience, and L1 knowledge, all of which were examined with reference to syntactic, semantic, and/or pragmatic levels. In terms of the relationship between learners’ perceptions of grammatical difficulty and their overall L2 proficiency, results show that learners’ perceptions of grammatical difficulty do not vary at the syntactic level, but that there is some variation at the pragmatic level. Regarding the relationship between learners’ perceptions of grammatical difficulty and their L2 knowledge, results suggest that learners’ perceptions of grammatical difficulty vary according to their implicit/explicit knowledge of the features in question; at the explicit knowledge level, the feature perceived to be less difficult to learn is used more accurately, while at the implicit knowledge level, this is not the case.

This research examined a policy developed by a school board and explored the successes and challenges of implementing a Sport Academy in a secondary school in Ontario. The Sport Academy‟s Principal and teaching staff were interviewed about funding, admission criteria, staffing, equity and student engagement. When this program was established, there were concerns that it would appear to be elitist and recruit highly academic students and athletic overachievers. However, the model and programming available to students might actually provide more opportunities, course options and flexible programming to students. The issues raised by the school‟s Principal and the Sport Academy teachers capture some of the political and practical problems that arise during the development of an innovative program.

This qualitative inquiry used a reflection-on-practice to examine my experiences facilitating professional learning within an Ontario public elementary school. My research revealed that my non-traditional approach to teacher professional development might constitute a form of Professional Learning Community (PLC). The data show that as a facilitator I found myself both inside and outside the communities I tried to form and support. Further, this inquiry exemplifies the ways I both nurtured and impeded professional learning as a result of my facilitation. I hope that the information and insights gleamed from this study may be broadened to include professional learning as it relates to occupations outside the realm of education. As a result, this thesis offers approaches to facilitation that might be able to transform professional practice through PD and consequently, improve student success.

This study investigated secondary school students’ errors and misconceptions in algebra with a view to expose the nature and origin of those errors and to make suggestions for classroom teaching. The study used a mixed method research design. An algebra test which was pilot-tested for its validity and reliability was given to a sample of grade 11 students in an urban secondary school in Ontario. The test contained questions from four main areas of algebra: variables, algebraic expressions, equations, and word problems. A rubric containing the observed errors was prepared for each conceptual area. Two weeks after the test, six students were interviewed to identify their misconceptions and their reasoning. In the interview process, students were asked to explain their thinking while they were doing the same problems again. Some prompting questions were asked to facilitate this process and to clarify more about students’ claims. The results indicated a number of error categories under each area. Some errors emanated from misconceptions. Under variables, the main reason for misconceptions was the lack of understanding of the basic concept of the variable in different contexts. The abstract structure of algebraic expressions posed many problems to students such as understanding or manipulating them according to accepted rules, procedures, or algorithms. Inadequate understanding of the uses of the equal sign and its properties when it is used in an equation was a major problem that hindered solving equations correctly. The main difficulty in word problems was translating them from natural language to algebraic language. Students used guessing or trial and error methods extensively in solving word problems. Some other difficulties for students which are non-algebraic in nature were also found in this study. Some of these features were: unstable conceptual models, haphazard reasoning, lack of arithmetic skills, lack or non-use of metacognitive skills, and test anxiety. Having the correct conceptual (why), procedural (how), declarative (what), and conditional knowledge (when) based on the stage of the problem solving process will allow students to avoid many errors and misconceptions. Conducting individual interviews in classroom situations is important not only to identify errors and misconceptions but also to recognize individual differences.