This article describes typical urban-rural atmospheric differences, focuses on heat islands as an example of observable alternation-response effects, and briefly describes some simple exercises which are intended to illustrate the reason for such temperature differences. (Author/DE)

A comparison is made of American and Japanese humor in a class of English as a second language. American humor is categorized into four types: anecdotal, wordplay, wise sayings and contrived. (AG)

In this age of world-mindedness, children should develop an appreciation and understanding of people of other cultures. This document contains some of the material presented in a workshop on teaching children about the cultures of the Pacific Rim through the use of folklore and folktales. A dialogue from Peter Parley's Adventures of James Jenkins…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of gender and three modes of story reconstruction training on second-grade students' story comprehension. Thirty-six children were randomly assigned to three treatment groups: drawing, discussion, and thematic-fantasy play. On three separate occasions, students were read books and participated…

The teaching of writing to students who speak nonstandard English can be difficult because students' linguistic differences rarely indicate true incompetence, and students' writing problems may result from conflicts between the cultures and language uses at home and school. Factors found to encourage writing improvement are the following: (1)…

Classroom observation data were collected from 32 presentations by 7 professors in the College of Medicine at Texas A&M University over the course of 9 months for a study of the potential of two-way television as an instructional medium. Half of the observations were made from two-way television mediated lessons transmitted from the Veterans…

The study compared the effects of two instructional strategies for teaching the programming language, Logo, on the problem solving skills of third graders. The two strategies are the guided discovery approach, a student-directed learning environment with the teacher as a facilitator, and the direct instruction approach, with specific…

Malcolm Knowles is attributed with developing the most cogent model underlying the assumption that teaching adults should differ from teaching children and adolescents. His andragogical model is based on the premise that adult learning differs from preadult learning. Two studies have examined whether teachers do actually use a different style when…

This curriculum guide provides information in both English and French for teaching the course, Computer Literacy 10, in the high schools of the Canadian province of Alberta. A basic introductory course developed in response to the need to acquaint high school students with a general understanding of computers and their use, Computer Literacy 10…

Aspects of second language learning and instruction are explored in order to develop a rationale for a comprehension-based approach to language instruction. Eight characteristic pedagogical assumptions are critically examined, including assumptions regarding the role of grammar, age differences in learning ability, the priority given to each of…

The study is described which examined quantitative and qualitative differences among learning disabled (LD) subgroups and between LD and normal Ss in reasoning and problem solving behaviors. The research strategy involved (1) detailed analyses of the behavior of subgroups of LD adolescents and of matched normal achieving adolescents in a task…

This paper compares the content of two types of instruction presented to a student either by an intelligent tutoring system or by some conventional text, such as a textbook or a computer user's manual, when the educational goal is skills learning. Two distinct points of view are presented: (1) that of the "expounders," who believe that…

This study addresses three questions: (1) whether sex is related to ability and interest in computers; (2) whether a relationship exists between the presence of a computer in the home and a child's ability and interest in computing; and (3) the combination of factors that account for students' perceptions of success in developing programming…

Points out some biological, cultural, developmental and psychological differences between boys and girls which are not accounted for in the educational practices and curriculums of elementary schools. Teachers are asked to pay specific attention to the often ignored needs of young male students. (SDH)

Describes an experiment at the University of Hawaii to test the effectiveness of a set of video-taped Japanese language-and-culture teaching lessons. (PP)