In today's climate of accountability and standards, increasing attention is focused on teacher "quality," with less emphasis on what teachers actually do to interest and engage students in learning. This path-breaking volume addresses this research problem with a clear definition and a content-specific analysis of the most essential teaching moment-the instructional explanation-for vital new perspectives on educational method and process.

"In today's climate of accountability and standards, increasing attention is focused on teacher "quality," with less emphasis on what teachers actually do to interest and engage students in learning. This path-breaking volume addresses this research problem with a clear definition and a content-specific analysis of the most essential teaching moment-the instructional explanation-for vital new perspectives on educational method and process.Rich in examples from science, mathematics, and the humanities, Instructional Explanations in the Disciplines explores a variety of interactive contexts for teaching and learning, which may be collaborative between teachers, students, and others, performed in non-classroom settings, or assisted by technology. The book's subject-matter-specific framework reveals key elements in the process, such as carefully examining the question to be answered, making connections with what is already known, and developing examples conducive to further understanding.Instructional Explanations in the Disciplines is a valuable addition to the education library, giving researchers new methods of unpacking educational process as few books before it."

Preface, Mary Kay Stein and Linda Kucan Chapter 1: Introduction: Explaining Instructional Explanations, Gaea Leinhardt Section 1: Instructional Explanations in the Teaching and Learning of Science Chapter 2: What Kind of Explanation is a Model? Richard Lehrer and Leona Schauble Chapter 3: Learning, Identity, and Instructional Explanations, Jorge Larreamendy-Joerns and Tatiana Muñoz Chapter 4: Learning Chemistry: What, When, and How? David Yaron, Michael Karabinos, Karen Evans, Jodi Davenport, Jordi Cuadros, and James Greeno Chapter 5: Negotiating the Goal of Museum Inquiry: How Families Engineer and Experiment, Kyung Youn Kim and Kevin Crowley Section II: Instructional Explanations in the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics Chapter 6: A Framing of Instructional Explanations: Let Us Explain With You, Carla Van De Sande and James Greeno Chapter 7: How and Why Do Teachers Explain Things the Way They Do? Alan H. Schoenfeld Chapter 8: The Explanatory Power of Examples in Mathematics: Challenges for Teaching, Orit Zaslavsky Chapter 9: Using Designed Instructional Activities to Enable Novices to Manage Ambitious Mathematics Teaching, Magdalene Lampert, Heather Beasley, Hala Ghousseini, Elham Kazemi, and Megan Franke Section III: Instructional Explanations in the Teaching and Learning of the Humanities Chapter 10: Learning History and Learning Language: Focusing on Language in Historical Explanations to Support English Language Learners, Mariana Achugar and Catherine Stainton Chapter 11: Instructional Explanations in a Legal Classroom: Are Students' Argument Diagrams ofHypothetical Reasoning Diagnostic? Kevin Ashley and Collin Lynch Chapter 12: Connecting with Art: How Families Talk about Art in a Museum Setting, Karen Knutson and Kevin Crowley Chapter 13: Developing Writing Skills through Students' Giving Instructional Explanations, Kwangsu Cho and Christian Schunn Index