This paper investigates the learning behaviour, learning environment and learning outcomes of Hong Kong Chinese students enrolled on an Australian university's Bachelor of Business degree course taught by visiting Australian lecturers in Hong Kong. The Chinese students are task-focused and passive learners. They do not demonstrate creative…

This was a study to see whether students learn specific material better in classes which emphasize recitation on fact questions or recitation which involves the students in higher cognitive reasoning and interpreting skills. A series of 10 one-hour ecology lessons were taught by specially trained teachers; the same curriculum materials were…

Discusses the use of simultaneous recitation as an instructional strategy in Baltimore's (Maryland) primary schools during the early part of the 19th century. Describes the classroom environment and attempts to use student monitors to make the simultaneous recitation approach more effective. (CFR)

Statistics is known to be a difficult subject, demanding students to perceive interrelations between numerous highly abstract concepts. Many students approach the subject with an evasive attitude, often resulting in rote learning yielding little conceptual understanding of statistics. Working from a constructivist paradigm, we aimed to stimulate…

This document outlines a method of identifying children in need of remedial instruction and gives a detailed description of how paraprofessional school personnel should carry out this remedial instruction. The identification of children needing remedial instruction is made by means of tests given in kindergarten or first grade. These tests…

A charter school in Kenai, Alaska, offers back-to-basics curriculum and direct instruction. The school has drawn many home-schoolers back to the public school system, and consistently scores high on standardized tests. The school's success is attributed to teachers' collaboration and common vision, continuity across grades, high academic…

Education Queensland's New Basics project has extended conceptions of "equity" to incorporate dimensions such as higher order thinking and student control of classroom activity. This requires a critique of the outcomes attained by even high achieving students. It is therefore useful to interrogate professional discourses that shape…

Twenty primary-aged students with learning disabilities were tutored by nondisabled students in grades 3-6. Tutored students' performance on single-digit addition facts improved compared to a no-treatment control group. There were no significant differences between two tutoring procedures: a counting-on approach and a rote-memorization approach.…

"Good teaching" is notoriously difficult to measure. It may be possible, though, to say where a teacher stands on a scale of development which has four stages. In the first stage, the authority is the teacher, and the student gives back rote responses. In the second stage, the authority is the text or syllabus, and the student asks…

The aims of the article are: (1) to outline the general tenets of the "back to basics" movements; (2) to indicate how these tenets go counter to emerging research on hemispheric specialization; and (3) to suggest methods which are brain-compatible and likely to produce competent creative problem solvers. (Author/TG)

Describes the nature of the developmental spelling continuum. Considers the common instructional concerns of word selection, yearly and weekly routines, and organizing to meet the needs of poor spellers against the developmental backdrop. (MG)

This study compared six adults' learning of English names for Chinese visual characters, through prototype instruction (in which participants were taught the meaning of the distinctive feature of multicomponent characters) and rote instruction (in which participants traced the character and wrote its translation). Participants learned more rapidly…

Reports observations of primary teachers (n=14) efforts to provide activity-based lessons for their pupils. Teachers' beliefs that their lessons were student-centered were not confirmed by the observations of the lessons. Discusses implications of the findings for inservice teacher education and parental involvement. (MDH)

Normally achieving students (n=119) and students with mild handicaps (n=83) in grades 3-6 were instructed to create and answer computation items similar to samples given. Students with mild handicaps understood item characteristics enough to create like items, though averaging three years behind normal achievers. A sample instructional activity is…

Every spring, education-related newspaper and magazine stories raise the alarm that schools are "teaching to the test." Scores of articles and editorials paint a disheartening picture of frustrated teachers forced to abandon good instructional practices for a relentless stream of worksheets based on boring, repetitive test-preparation…