This study examined the change in the attitudes of 70 Israeli Arab pre-service teachers for special education and their professional development resulting from combining three teaching methods (personal diaries, case studies and theoretical models) in a one-semester course. This mixed-methods study included close-ended questionnaires, open-ended…

Children, 4-6 years of age, in special education kindergartens were randomly assigned to a classification training (n 45) and a comparison (n 49) group. Children in the training group were taught the Classification unit of Bright Start, whereas those in the comparison group received a regular content-oriented curriculum. Both groups were given…

Purpose: Understanding the contribution of the use of proper language to thinking development and learning processes, served as the basis of this study. The purpose of this study is to learn from parents, teachers and teacher-trainees whether their view of efficient teaching also relies on the teacher's use of proper language.…

Aim/Purpose: The purpose of the current study is to introduce a digital thinking skills (DTS) theoretical model (DTSM) that could support and enhance digital instruction best practices in schools. Methodology: We have taken a mixed-methods approach. Our respondents represent diverse cultural, linguistic, pedagogical, and social heritages.…

Nowadays, we are surrounded by artifacts that are capable of adaptive behavior, such as electric pots, boiler timers, automatic doors, and robots. The literature concerning human beings' conceptions of "traditional" artifacts is vast, however, little is known about our conceptions of behaving artifacts, nor of the influence of the…

Research conducted among student teachers during three academic years (2010-2011; 2011-2012; 2012-2013) at Israel's Levinsky College of Education sought to ascertain (a) the extent of implementation of repeated picture-book reading (RPBR) with preschool groups each academic year; (b) how does the implementation of RPBR progress throughout the…

This article reports on the practice and evaluation of a music education model, In Harmony, which utilizes new technologies and current theories of learning to mediate the music learning experience. In response to the needs of twenty-first century learners, the educational software programs Teach, Learn, Evaluate! and Impromptu served as central…

Objective: Velocardiofacial syndrome (VCFS) is associated with cognitive deficits and high rates of schizophrenia and other neuropsychiatric disorders. We report the data from two large cohorts of individuals with VCFS from Israel and Western Europe to characterize the neuropsychiatric phenotype from childhood to adulthood in a large sample.…

This study investigated the effectiveness of assessing young children's meta-cognition in different contexts (i.e., individual learning (IL), peer assisted learning (PAL) and self-reports). Additionally, the contributions of declarative and procedural meta-cognition in IL and PAL, TOM and language ability on children's cognitive performance…

Experiences with an instructional strategy which enabled students to build for themselves the appropriate scientific concept for energy are described. This was done by pupil/teacher dialogue in small groups, in which students were expected to create for themselves a "generalization mechanism" based on their own frameworks. (KR)

R. Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment (IE) Program was used as a tool of cognitive educational intervention with 10 deaf children (ages 7 to 15), all recent immigrants from Ethiopia to Israel. The group's special education needs resulted from their deafness, lack of formal educational experience, lack of previous exposure to sign language or…

Research findings confirm positive links between music education, scholastic achievement, and social adaptability, especially among at-risk and special needs children. However, few studies explain how this process occurs. This article presents a didactic approach, which suggests practical ways of enhancing general learning skills while teaching…

Academic achievement of pupils working in small cooperation groups was compared to that of students taught in the traditional whole-class approach. Pupils in grades 2, 4 and 6 from small-group classrooms excelled on high level items; the groups did not differ on items measuring low level cognitive functioning. (Author/GSK)

A comparative analysis evaluated three studies that dealt with the differences among five-year-olds that should be considered before reading instruction is initiated in kindergarten. The premise of the comparison was that children from different countries (especially Israel, where these studies were conducted), have different abilities, react…

Reports a study of 913 Israeli students in grades 7-12 from randomly chosen heterogeneous homeroom classes to investigate students' Piagetian cognitive levels using a video-based test. Results indicate that less than 50 percent of high school students have mastered formal operational reasoning. (MDH)