Before the second world war, pupils in Czechoslovakia were expected to conform to discipline and to accept the teacher's style of teaching. Selection was accepted, with the highest attaining pupils siphoned off at age 11 to academic schools. After 1945, the countries of the Soviet bloc adopted the Soviet system of single-stream comprehensive…

This article explains how to teach long division using hands-on materials (skittles, base ten blocks, colored counters, numeral cards) and investigates reviewing division word problems with middle school students (N=27) with learning disabilities in mathematics by this approach compared to spending the same amount of time on the typical practices…

This study examines the influence of a dramatic art-based history program for fifth-grade students on both their learning and enjoyment of history. The program, called "Performing History," reflects theories of effective use of drama in the classroom as well as successful ways to teach history. The program presents historical information as part…

This study compared the use of an animated pedagogical agent (agent) with an electronic arrow and voice narration (arrow and voice) in a multimedia learning environment where 74 college level English as a Second Language (ESL) students learned English relative clauses. No significant differences in learning or performance were found between the…

Content-based language instruction has become a widely adopted pedagogical approach to EAP. This paper reports the results of a study of the effects of content-based ESL instruction on students' future academic performance. The study used college academic records to evaluate the academic performance of two groups of ESL students who enrolled as…

Academic assessment for students with challenging behavior is often overlooked. Confronted with a curriculum that is above or below their instructional needs, students may engage in a range of inappropriate behaviors (e.g., acting-out, withdrawal, social avoidance). In that behavioral and learning problems are reciprocal, academically related…

Two groups of middle school students were taught U.S. colonial history during a 5-week period using 2 different instructional strategies. In the experimental group, concepts and problem-solving strategies were explicitly taught; in the control group, content was presented using lectures and reading. All students took a pretest and several…

The activity uses drawings typically found in textbooks, engaging students in physical and mental activities such as drawing, painting and figure completion--as well as finding missing words and answering guiding questions. The activity deals with three topics: the structure of DNA, DNA replication and protein synthesis. In this study we…

The article outlines the technical writing tutorial (TWT) that preceded an advanced ESL writing course for students of English Philology at the Jagiellonian University. Having assessed the English skills of those students at the end of the semester, we found a statistically significant increase in the performance of the students who had taken the…

This article reports the validity and use of a new form of the Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (CLES). As part of a larger study, a comparative student version (CLES-CS) was developed to evaluate the impact of an innovative teacher development program (based on the Integrated Science Learning Environment, ISLE, model) in school…

College teachers have done an excellent job over the years of teaching technical concepts, but they may not have done as good a job of teaching their adult students to be a good problem-solvers. Nine representatives from the technical industry and academia were interviewed in this study for their expert opinions on the subject of teaching…

ICT curriculum integration is the apparent goal of an extensive array of ICT initiatives in all Australian states and territories. However, the reported impact of ICT use by teachers on learning and teaching is by no means consistent. Explanations offered for this in the literature include the influence of teacher confidence and expertise, and…

To develop their logico-mathematical foundation of number as described by Piaget (1947/1950, 1967/1971, 1971/1974), 26 low-performing, low-SES first graders were given physical-knowledge activities (e.g., Pick-Up Sticks and "bowling") during the math hour instead of math instruction. During the second half of the school year, when they showed…

This article examines the language choices made by native-speaker teachers of Japanese, Korean, German and French in foreign language (FL) classrooms in New Zealand secondary schools. It explores these teachers' patterns of alternation between English, the majority language, and the TL, using both AS-units (Analysis of Speech units), devised by…

Problem-based learning (PBL), widely employed in medical schools, has much to offer management education as well. This article presents a comparative analysis of PBL's likely benefits for medical and management education. Its considerable value notwithstanding, researchers have argued that PBL does not develop medical students' problem-solving…