This peer-evaluation assignment encouraged students to think critically, synthesize information and write about public relations course material rather than incorporate surface information into written assignments. Because peer reviewers can improve the grades on their final papers by offering concrete suggestions to the original authors, students…

Effective use of informational texts in early elementary grade classrooms can extend and expand children's knowledge of the world and provide critical skills necessary for success in the information age. This article suggests several research-based instructional activities that will enhance children's ability to use and comprehend informational…

In this study we measured changes in science teachers' conceptual science understanding (content knowledge) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) while participating in a problem-based learning (PBL) model of professional development. Teachers participated in a two-week long workshop followed by nine monthly meetings during one academic year…

In science education, students should come to understand the nature and significance of models. In the case of chemistry education it is argued that the present use of models is often not meaningful from the students' perspective. A strategy to overcome this problem is to use an authentic chemical modelling practice as a context for a curriculum…

Research, from all around the world, has shown that teachers' actions are informed by a variety of factors, including long-held and frequently unarticulated traditions about teaching and learning, systemic expectations of the processes of schooling, available textbooks, traditions of teacher education, school cultures, assessment traditions and…

This paper presents the main functions that university plays in society and describes the seminar methodology created at Ramon Llull University. Specifically the article focuses on and explains how seminars help to promote complex knowledge in students. An empirical study with students participating in seminars is designed to assess the…

Today's engineering graduates will solve tomorrow's problems in a world that is advancing faster and facing more critical challenges than ever before. This situation creates significant demand for engineering education to evolve in order to effectively prepare a diverse community of engineers for these challenges. Such concerns have led to the…

This paper draws on recent research findings in contending that starting with a student's "known" is a particularly sophisticated concept that, when understood both theoretically and practically, will permit teachers to help students read their texts with greater ease. It argues that students may have more prior knowledge about a topic…

Two exercises are described for teaching about perception and knowledge in an introductory sociology course. One involves the use of a series of anomalous playing cards; the other uses a series of printed statements. Both force the students to experience perception and knowledge as socially constructed and problematic. (Author)

Introduces four categories of teaching knowledge: the "folkways of teaching,""local mores,""private views," and "teaching expertise." Analyzes the "folkways of teaching," arguing that they are known by acquaintance, through participation, and as common sense. (Author/JDH)

Reviews some differences in the educating approach of environmental education and environmental interpretation and the cognitive processes involved. Also presents an interpretive field study based on the cognitive processes reviewed. The study evaluated the ability of 150 users of forest trails to recognize interpretive messages experienced during…

The focus of this research is to describe children's ways of quantifying length and perimeter in response to an open-ended reasoning task. Twenty-five children from grade 2 through grade 10 were given two fixed perimeter tasks in a structured interview setting. A 1997 framework proposed by Clements, Battista, Sarama, Swaminathan, and McMillen was…

Studied the extent to which experiences designed to help preservice teachers take advantage of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute moved them to acquire deeper knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement. Preservice teachers were from teacher education programs that differed with respect to situated activity, discourse communities, and authentic…

Addresses issues pertaining to the transmittal of common ethical values related to the practice of evaluation. The issues include the need for development and adoption of a common core of knowledge of ethics in evaluation, the need to provide this knowledge to all evaluation participants, and the need for multiple methods of instruction and…

This paper discusses the knowledge and skill requirements for manufacturing system design and describes an innovative "learning laboratory" approach to educating graduate level manufacturing engineers. The laboratory provides a mechanism that gives engineers a wide range of knowledge and skills in design and implementation, much of which cannot be…