This ERIC Digest overviews recent research on teaching and learning fractions and provides suggestions for practice, help in locating resources having direct application in the classroom, and sources for further reading in the literature. Students' conceptions of fractions or rational numbers, common mistakes teachers make, and new teaching…

Students come to the classroom with theories that they have actively constructed from their everyday experiences. However, some of these theories are incomplete half-truths. Although such misconceptions interfere with new learning, students are often emotionally and intellectually attached to them. Some common mathematical misconceptions involve:…

Goals and objectives of many state and local environmental education programs have included developing students with knowledge, skills, positive attitudes and motivation to take action, to prevent and to resolve environmental problems. This digest describes variables involved in developing responsible environmental behavior and some teaching…

This ERIC Digest describes the parameters of misconception research as it relates to the learning of science and highlights some of its implications for the teaching of science in the elementary school. The document reviews terminology associated with misconception research, identifies common characteristics of misconceptions, and specifies…

This digest addresses cognitive learning with respect to outside-the-classroom instruction at the elementary school level. It notes that affective, not cognitive, learning has traditionally been the primary objective of field instruction at all K-12 levels. Therefore, most educational research in field instruction has been mainly non-cognitive in…

Cognitive learning related to the environment has typically been subsumed as a part of instruction in the more traditional areas of the secondary school curriculum, in particular in science and/or social studies classes. This digest contains a review of a number of studies dealing with cognitive learning in the environment, investigating the…