In this article, the author describes the ASE Annual Conference 2010 which was held at Nottingham after a gap of 22 years. As always, the main conference was preceded by International Day, an important event for science educators from across the world. There were two strands to the programme: (1) "What works for me?"--sharing new ideas…

Enhancing undergraduate students' preparation and interest in science careers frequently involves engagement in authentic research experiences. Traditional undergraduate research (UR) one-to-one faculty-to-student ratio is challenged by demand and cost, motivating the development of alternative approaches to offering these experiences. Embracing…

Instrument choice is a crucial part of evaluation of professional development programmes. The use of multiple evaluation methods helps in triangulation, and offers insight into the developmental sequence involved in the changes in teacher beliefs and practice. Most current instruments are self-contained and not designed for use in conjunction with…

While formal research into the effect various technologies have on vocabulary acquisition is still in its infancy, it is clear that--intentionally or incidentally--students have used various electronic media to learn new words for some time now. Moreover, although it is still far from clear exactly how one acquires vocabulary in a second language…

Utilizing student-centered pedagogy, this case study explores an increasingly prominent and instructive addition to traditional academic coursework--the field study experience. This is particularly true in the arena of environmental education where students learn best by experiencing environmental problems first-hand and then interacting with…

In two experiments we examined how children's nonword pronunciations are influenced by learning words. In Experiment 1, children pronounced nonwords before and after learning words sharing orthographic rimes with the nonwords. These rimes varied in spelling-to-sound consistency and regularity. Children's nonword pronunciations were more sensitive…

The secondary level of a Response to Intervention system, sometimes referred to as Tier II intervention, targets students who experience inadequate response to good classroom instruction for 10-15 weeks of validated small-group instruction. The twin purposes of secondary prevention are to (a) prevent the development of long-term reading difficulty…

"If someone were traveling to our area for the first time during this time of year, what would you tell them to bring to wear? Why?" This question was used to engage students in a guided-inquiry unit about how climate differs from weather. In this lesson, students explored local and national data sets to give "travelers" advice…

Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to examine a four year program designed to improve the effectiveness of prereferral intervention teams in rural schools. Quantitative data (basic descriptives) were collected regarding referrals, recommendations, and outcomes. Team meetings were audiotaped and coded to yield qualitative data about the…

This paper is a reflexive exploration of my teaching and evaluation techniques in a diverse class on minority literature. I explain my classroom evaluation and teaching techniques in offering an African literature course as a junior African professor trained outside the United States and teaching in a predominantly white institution. Using Paulo…

Radiological images show anatomical structures in multiple planes and may be effective for teaching anatomical spatial relationships, something that students often find difficult to master. This study tests the hypotheses that (1) the use of cadaveric computed tomography (CT) scans in the anatomy laboratory is positively associated with…

Although they are valid and reliable, one-minute fluency measures are defining and capturing a reduced view of fluency as simply accuracy and rate in oral reading. Thus, they may lead astray our understanding of struggling readers' reading fluency development and instructional needs. Fluency is a complicated construct. The author discusses a…

We investigated how student understanding of complex science topics was impacted when 27 teachers switched from typical to inquiry instruction in a delayed cohort comparison design study. For the same set of science topics, the teachers used typical methods of instruction in the first year and online, visualization rich inquiry units in the second…

The authors tested whether students can be taught to better understand conventional representations in diagrams, photographs, and other visual representations in science textbooks. The authors developed a teacher-delivered, workbook-and-discussion-based classroom instructional method called Conventions of Diagrams (COD). The authors trained 1…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical comparison of two measures of school success -- a value-added assessment system and the federally-mandated system of adequate yearly progress (AYP) -- to identify highly effective urban schools in the USA and to explore the predictive relationship between evidence-based decision-making…