More school districts are being required to demonstrate that their students are reaching state standards and benchmarks. In order to demonstrate student learning and the achievement of the standards and benchmarks, physical education instructors need to determine what should be assessed and how to perform these assessments. Authentic assessments…

This case study examines the roles that a professor, graduate student, consultant, and community education specialist at a public university in California have played in a partnership with an elementary school and a community-based organization in a nearby rural town. The case reveals that individuals' roles and approaches to public engagement…

Sefton School Advisory Service has been working with Crossens Nursery School in Southport on a project to develop science and technology. The overall project was inspired by the visit of the headteacher to the Reggio Emilia school in Italy. Central to the Reggio approach is a philosophy which values the children as researchers and as partners with…

Science teachers ask questions to assess students' cognitive abilities and to promote student motivation in learning. Cognitive questions are usually divided into low-order and high-order types. According to the conceptual change model of learning, teachers can also use questions to facilitate the construction of knowledge by students. These…

This study aimed to investigate the experiences of mothers participating in MOCEP in Istanbul, through a qualitative research methodology. Overall effectiveness of the programme, its implementation and how the mothers benefited were the main concerns. The study was carried out with 20 mothers. Individual and focus interviews, participant…

In the present study, the personal epistemological beliefs of group leaders in toddler child care programmes are investigated. Epistemological beliefs are beliefs about knowing and learning. It is considered that the quality of these beliefs is influenced by educational experiences. In this study, such beliefs are assumed to be mediating factors…

Pupil discomfort in sex education lessons is high, often manifesting itself in reluctance to participate constructively. Low levels of participation are problematic, jeopardizing effective learning. Teacher interview and lesson observation data, collected in 25 schools in the East of Scotland, reveal that there is much variation between classes…

Qualitative analysis of a large ethnographic database from observations of a resident teaching clinic revealed three important findings. The first finding was that breakdown, a situation where an "actor" (such as a person or the group) is not achieving expected effectiveness, was the most important category because of its frequency and explanatory…

This paper focuses on the use of multimedia-based predict--observe--explain (POE) tasks to facilitate small group learning conversations. Although the tasks were given to pairs of students as a diagnostic tool to elicit their pre-instructional physics conceptions, they also provided a peer learning opportunity for students. The study adopted a…

The recent convergence of video and computer technologies presents new opportunities and challenges in education. Video production resources such as cameras and video editing software are now widely available in many schools and homes. The ease of use of these resources has encouraged teachers to use them across the curriculum with students of all…

This article reports on a large scale implementation of personal response units in three introductory science courses at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. An online survey of students was conducted to gather their perceptions on the uses of the devices, triangulated by participant observation of the classes and email interviews with the…

This article analyzes the self-correction of spelling by learners of intermediate Japanese. Participants in this study consisted of 20 students with "kanji" (Chinese characters) background and 43 without. This study investigates (1) types of spelling errors made; (2) the success rate of corrections made when codes for types of errors…

This paper describes research into the beliefs and practices established over time by teachers, who had been engaged in an innovative "mathematical investigations" school program, based on the use of exploratory software. The theoretical framework perceives the teacher as an active mediator of innovation, constructing and reorganizing a…

In this study, instructional activities in science classrooms are examined in order to collect evidence to account for the strengths and weaknesses of Hong Kong students in scientific literacy as reported in the PISA 2000 project. The study consists of a questionnaire survey on the perceptions of classroom climate of science lessons of 17,616…

This paper examines the ways in which gender, religion, ethnicity and class intertwine in a state religious girl's junior high school in Israel. It is based on ethnographic data collected from 1999-2002, including interviews with staff and students and observations of classes and other school events. The claim is made that in this school,…