This paper sets out to identify some key problems, issues and challenges relating to out-of-school experiences of learners in science teaching that emerged during classroom observations in schools in Botswana. Generally, there is evidence suggesting weak incorporation of learners' experiences into teaching. The experiences seemed to have a lower…

In an era of continuing developments in science and technology, teachers are faced with an increasingly challenging task of helping K-12 students become and remain scientifically literate. Effective science instruction involves activation of prior knowledge, hands-on learning, and continuous reflection. Technology has the potential to play a…

Three experiments with paired comparisons were conducted to test the noncompensatory character of the recognition heuristic (D. G. Goldstein & G. Gigerenzer, 2002) in judgment and decision making. Recognition and knowledge about the recognized alternative were manipulated. In Experiment 1, participants were presented pairs of animal names where…

Hierarchical graphs represent relationships between objects (like computer file systems, family trees etc.). Graph nodes represent the objects and interconnecting lines represent the relationships. In two experiments we investigated what concepts are necessary for understanding hierarchical graphs, what misconceptions evolve when some of the…

This study explored the relations between 5- and 6-year-olds' (N = 40) past social experiences, social knowledge, and interpretation and recall of social situations. Children were read stories depicting a fictional child's behaviors, and path analyses related children's impressions of the story character and story recall to their expectations…

In this article, the author advocates the use of literacy narratives--assignments in which students are asked to describe and reflect upon their experiences with reading and writing. Among their other uses, she believes that they provide a sense of students' prior literacy experiences and of their general feelings toward reading and writing, and…

In this essay I argue that when children come to school they are confronted by an intervention in their learning, and comprehension of the world in general, that contrasts with the experiences of learning that they have generated previously to make sense of their world. Prior to schooling, where learning is directed from outside, children have…

Excerpted from Sarama and Clements's chapter in NAEYC's book K Today: Teaching and Learning in the Kindergarten Year, the authors explain that in response to the need for high-quality early childhood mathematics instruction, the field has developed research-based content standards identifying key concepts and skills children need to gain…

This article investigates verb placement, especially Verb second (V2), in post-puberty second language (L2) learners of two closely related Germanic V2 languages: Swedish and German. Hakansson, "et al." (2002) have adduced data from first language (L1) Swedish-speaking learners of German in support of the claim that the syntactic property of V2…

This firsthand account through the eyes of a facilitator describes meaningful moments of someone learning the job. Working primarily with new teachers in a large high school, this facilitator experienced the challenges and the fulfillment in helping colleagues, and discovered that the benefit of helping others grow may be one's own growth.

Since its publication in 2000, Strategies That Work has become an indispensable resource for teachers who want to explicitly teach thinking strategies so that students become engaged, thoughtful, independent readers. In this revised and expanded edition, the authors have added twenty completely new comprehension lessons, extending the scope of the…

The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of implementation of argumentation in a physics classroom on students' reasoning. This research is both quantitative and qualitative in nature. Experimental design was used for the study. For the quantitative aspect of the research, students' prior knowledge in the beginning of the…

The perceived crisis in reading achievement may be misplaced--the real crisis may be what is ignored in the curriculum. People are alarmed at the lack of emphasis being placed on teaching content knowledge in many of today's classrooms. They laugh when Jay Leno takes to the street, interviewing teenagers and young adults who do not have the…

The current study examined the mathematical achievement of high school students enrolled for 3 years in one of three NSF funded "Standards"-based curricula (IMP, CMIC, MMOW). The focus was on traditional topics in mathematics as measured by subtests of a standardized achievement test and a criterion-referenced test of mathematics…

College students with either high or low prior domain knowledge (PK) read a text chapter presented in short pages on a computer monitor. Half of the participants read with headings present and half with headings absent. The computer recorded time spent reading and rereading each short page. Learning was assessed through a structured recall task.…