This use of the term "student's misconceptions" reflects a knowledge transmission view of teaching rather than a constructivist view. Among science educators there has been an undue emphasis on changing student views into views accepted by the scientific community. This overemphasis mirrors the preoccupation with transmitting the "right answer"…

Specific mechanisms of classroom interactions by which teachers and students conjecture, criticize, explain, test, and refine ideas and procedures is what is referred to as "negotiation of meaning in the mathematics classroom." Elaboration of the form these mechanisms take in practice, and hence investigation of classroom constructions…

This paper is about one of the central dilemmas of e-Learning: can we separate content and context, and how should we manage the relationship between the two? Or to put it another way, are Learning Objects just commoditised learning? With the growth of e-Learning over the past few years, learning objects have come into their own. They are the…

The implementation of inquiry-based teaching is a major theme in national science education reform documents such as "Project 2061: Science for All Americans" (Rutherford & Alhgren, 1990) and the "National Science Education Standards" (NRC, 1996). These reports argue that inquiry needs to be a central strategy of all…

The rapid growth of instructional technologies has provided college faculty with a vast array of educational resources and learning opportunities (Grasha, 2000; Kagima & Hausafus, 2001). As described in the relevant literature addressing this issue, there are several potential advantages in utilizing instructional technologies to enrich the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of scaffolding in helping students understand a complex problem. Seventy-nine 10th-grade students (15 to 16 years old) from an urban public school participated in this study. The ethnic breakdown of the students at this school was: 39.4% White, 18% Black, 22.4% Hispanic, and 20.3 %…

The impact of surface and reflective teaching and learning on students' academic success was studied with 178 students in grades 6 through 8 at a middle school in Tennessee. Students were surveyed to determine their experiences in the classroom with regard to surface or reflective teaching in their Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social…

This call for fundamental changes in the university makes the case that the modern university actively participates in the breakdown of human communities and the destruction of the natural world. The book suggests the way a new kind of university can strengthen human communities and repair the natural world. The chapters are: (1) "A Social History…

This paper presents a study investigating the effects of the Water Education Training (WET) program on students' performance in science. The WET Program is an after school program using an interdisciplinary approach which has three main objectives: improving science concept knowledge, writing performance, and attitudes toward science and writing.…

This book reports on young students' strategies, the ways they construct knowledge, and how to support such development over time. Focus is placed on how to develop an understanding of multiplication and division in grades 3-5. The book describes and illustrates what it means to do and learn mathematics, provides strategies to help teachers turn…

Asserting that the significance of Project work in the early childhood curriculum may not be just intellectual but, more importantly, may be related to dispositional development, this paper discusses why the Project Approach is important in early childhood education. The paper explores the intellectual and social benefits of the Project Approach…

Whichever of the numerous ways of grouping pupils for instruction the teacher uses, pupils should benefit as much as possible from reading instruction. Team teaching stresses large, small, and individual methods of grouping for instructional purposes. No more than 20 pupils should be taught at a single time in large group instruction. Flexibility…

Student disengagement and overuse of direct instruction can result in lack of student motivation. This paper reflects on the practice of 4th and 5th grade teachers at a suburban elementary school that includes diverse, mainly low- and middle-income students. Because of the diversity, motivation has been very important to the school. The paper…

The present work has the purpose of showing the evolution of topics or mathematical concepts that are both relevant and with marked grades of abstraction. In this report is specifically described the utilization of metacognitive tools. These include concept maps, the Gowin heuristic vee, and the clinical interview. They are efficient in showing…

The purpose of the study was to determine the effects of teacher beliefs measured by the Mathematics Beliefs Scales (E. Fennema, T. Carpenter, and M. Loef, 1990) on the problem-solving skills of their fourth and fifth grade students as measured in five areas of mathematics on the Junior Version of the Collis Romberg Mathematical Problem Solving…