This article describes a specific effort to create a multimedia training technology (A Child Protective Service Investigation Simulator or CPS Simulator) for a representative group of street-level public servants--child protective service (CPS) workers. The article first provides some background on why bias in this area is a significant problem,…

Wenger's theory of communities of practice (CoPs) helps explain how a group of Ph.D. students in the Department of Management Communication at the University of Waikato in New Zealand met a need for emotional and academic support and reduced isolation as they developed regular opportunities for face-to-face and virtual discussions on theory and…

Power Teaching weaves four factors into a seamless whole: standards, teaching thinking, research based strategies, and critical inquiry. As a prototype in its first year of development with an urban fifth grade class, the power teaching model connects selected district standards, thinking routines from Harvard University Project Zero Research…

The purpose of this study is to first develop an 8-week college teaching module based on root competition literature. The split-root technique is adapted for the teaching laboratory, and the Sugar Ann English pea (Pisum sativum var. Sugar Ann English) is selected as the species of interest prior to designing experiments, either original or…

This article focuses on data collected from a project called "Shared Spaces: Informal Learning and Digital Cultures". The project aimed to build links between young peoples' leisure and learning experiences, by engaging with the content and styles of learning connected with digital cultures in homes and community centres. The article focuses on…

Background: In Taiwan, traditional college science teaching concentrates on the direct transmission of knowledge or facts from instructors to students and thereby involves non-interactive teaching activities. Some researchers recommend that college faculties should be moving away from lectures as a means of instruction and increasing opportunities…

This study analysed 9 to 11 year old children's drawings of tropical rainforests immediately before and after a visit to the Humid Tropics Biome at the Eden Project, Cornwall, UK. A theoretical framework derived from considerations of informal learning and constructivism was used as a basis to develop a methodology to interpret the children's…

Over the past three decades, the K-12 student population in the United States has become ethnically and linguistically diverse. Not so with the vast majority of teachers, who are generally white, middle class, and monolingual English speaking. Successfully teaching students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds requires a new way…

Robert Chope is a professor of counseling at San Francisco State University, where he coordinates the Career Counseling Program. He is also the founder of the Career and Personal Development Institute in San Francisco, a practice that he has had for more than 25 years. Dr. Chope received his PhD from the University of Minnesota, Department of…

During a fieldstudy of children's gardens in the United States in 2005, the author became aware that possibilities for providing learning experiences in children's gardens are bountiful and different styles are emerging. Anecdotally this appears to be a contested area with some within the discipline favoring a narrower definition of children's…

Constructivist physical education emphasizes cognitive engagement. This study examined the impact of a constructivist curriculum on in-class physical activity. Caloric expenditure in metabolic equivalents (MET) and vector magnitude count (VM) data from a random sample of 41 constructivist lessons were compared with those from a random sample of 35…

This paper is a descriptive summary of a research project on blended learning in the Faculty of Arts at the University Complutense Madrid. The project was conducted as action research in 2002-06 by the research group LEETHi. LEETHi's projects focus on the teaching of literature from an intercultural perspective while helping to develop new media…

This article critically examines two sets of ideas that have influenced educational reform in the recent past: managerialism and market approaches. It is argued that while each can be demonstrated to have led to useful change, neither provides a basis for future improvement in education. A recent example of change within the State School sector of…

This paper explores "meaningful learning" as influenced by "constructivism." The study focused on assessing and comparing the quality of essays written by students who learnt a given topic in a classroom setting ("control") to those who learnt the same topic in the field ("experimental"). The objective was…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to construct a description and interpretation of the standards development process of the Early Childhood/Generalist Standards documents, both first edition and second edition, using an analysis of the actions of and interactions between committee members, professional organization representatives,…