Many teachers look at standardized tests as something to be dreaded. This author and teacher looks at standardized-test scores and sees a tool to bring students learning to new heights. This is a way for teachers to target instruction exactly where it's needed. A way to get students looking forward to end-of-the-year tests (really!) as a way to…

Reading and writing across content areas is emphasized in the standards and on high-stakes tests at the state and national level. As educators seek to incorporate content-area literacy into their teaching, they confront a maze of theories, instructional strategies, and acronyms like REAP and RAFT. Teachers who do work their way through the myriad…

Students of today, who have grown up with and become accustomed to the visual stimulation of television, computers, and video games, expect technology to be used effectively as part of their learning experience. As a result, faculty are continuously challenged to hold the attention of these learners from the high-tech generation. Through the…

This first edition of the New Media Consortium's (NMC) annual "Horizon Report" details findings of the Horizon Project, a research-oriented effort that seeks to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, or creative expression within higher education. Drawing on an ongoing series of interviews…

In this research work we explored the nature of 9-12 year old pupils' responses to probabilistic problems with tree diagrams. It was found that a large percentage of pupils failed to respond correctly even to very simple problems that demanded the identification of "possible routes/paths" in figures with tree diagrams/mazes. The results…

This paper considers how teachers' questioning behaviors are observed to change after training in and using clinical interviews. Seven elementary mathematics teachers participated in trainings in clinical interviews. They were videotaped while introducing a new mathematics topic to their students prior to and after four months of the training.…

In a complex domain such as economics, elementary school students' knowledge of formal systems beyond their immediate experience is often too incomplete, superficial, and disorganized to function as schema or model. However, visual imagery is a good technique for teaching young children a network of 10 to 20 propositions and the relationships…

Procedures for constructing an inexpensive, hands-on working model of DNA are provided, as well as suggestions for using the model in a high school or college biology class. (DC)

Proposes a categorization scheme based on instructional design theory and empirical findings for employing various types of graphic/visual displays under specified conditions. (Author/CHC)

A method of teaching students how to recognize when zeros are necessary and when they may be omitted is presented. (MP)

Describes a technique of using the collage in teaching single paragraph and experiential writing. The collage is an exciting motivational device that helps students express their thoughts first in pictures and later in words. (CMV)

Emphasizes how to choose visuals that will best illustrate ideas or relationships in teaching science, when to present real objects, and how to use pictures in assessing children's comprehension. A review of literature related to this topic is included. (SA)

This study, to determine whether complexity of detail, scale, and background help subjects to learn technical information, demonstrated no significant difference between groups. One group used the existing self-contained learning package with many complex visuals; the other group used lessons identical in the audio portion but containing…

Describes the use of the "cultoon," an informative cartoon depicting some aspect of a culture, to develop cultural understanding. (AM)

Describes the use of advertisements in language instruction, with particular attention to the language of advertisements, including the conative and emotive functions, linguistic shock, translation, humor, and cultural information. (AM)