This study examines U.S. and Chinese teachers' constructing, knowing, and evaluating representations to teach the concept of ratio. All Chinese lesson plans are very similar with details in teaching contents and procedure. The U.S lesson plans are extremely varied although they all adopted the "outline and worksheet" format. Both the…

The study inquired into the effect of research-based video-cases on pre-service teachers conceptualizing their understanding of contemporary mathematics teaching. The 43 participants enrolled in a Mathematics Method Course viewed and discussed 5 video-cases of primary teachers teaching. Journal entries, lesson plans, and microteaching observations…

Coral reefs are one of the most important ecosystems on the planet, providing sustenance to both marine organisms and humans. Yet they are also one of the most endangered ecosystems as coral reef coverage has declined dramatically in the past three decades. Researchers continually seek better ways to map coral reef coverage and monitor changes…

Two teachers reflect on their combined experiences in teaching middle school, teaching preservice teachers, and teaching online in order to adapt and apply strategies for bringing positive experiences in a computer-based environment to middle grade students. The result is five valuable lessons, each of which is explained theoretically and…

This article examines the strategies employed by four Singapore schools (two primary and two junior colleges) to manage barriers to information and communication technologies (ICT) integration. Based on the observations of ICT-mediated lessons and face-to-face interviews with teachers, ICT heads-of-department and school principals, six strategies…

It has long been under discussion how the teaching and learning environment should be arranged, how individuals achieve learning, and how teachers can effectively contribute to this process. Accordingly, a considerable number of theories and models have been proposed. Gardner (1983) caused a remarkable shift in the perception of learning theory as…

It is not unusual for an instructional model or approach to be misinterpreted in practice. Madeline Hunter bemoaned the way her Mastery Teaching approach was reduced to a seven step lesson plan. Although the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) Model of sheltered instruction for English language learners (ELLs) was developed fairly…

This article describes the revised summer school program developed by the Anchorage (AK) School District for students who received poor grades in their core classes or low scores in the Alaska Benchmark Examinations or California Achievement Tests. More than 500 middle school students from the district spent five weeks during the summer honing…

Twenty-five teachers with reputations for artistry in curriculum planning were interviewed about their "curriculum animation" plans or how they ensured their curriculum was brought to life. Their statements indicated that much of their planning is informal and intuitive, and that the criteria they use for their curriculum includes: (1) it is…

Teachers have a significant role to play in developing citizens committed to social justice. They can best fulfill this role by guiding students to examine injustice, seek out multiple perspectives on social problems, and develop concrete strategies for improving their communities and nation. This work is best supported by the development of a…

The content areas provide rich contexts for developing vocabulary. This article presents some principles and a lesson model--the learning cycle--that can be used to develop vocabulary while building understanding in science. Because science instruction and the learning cycle model promote learning in real-world contexts, they provide students with…

In this issue's "Classroom Notes" section, the following papers are discussed: (1) "Constructing a line segment whose length is equal to the measure of a given angle" (W. Jacob and T. J. Osler); (2) "Generating functions for the powers of Fibonacci sequences" (D. Terrana and H. Chen); (3) "Evaluation of mean and variance integrals without…

Changing teaching practices in secondary history classrooms requires teachers to first change their attitudes and views towards teaching history. This was a key finding that emerged from the analysis of changes that took place in the teachers' classrooms during the course of the Teaching American History grant project that was successful in…

This article describes practices in inclusive education in Australian schools and classrooms. In discussing the changes that schools have made in order to be inclusive and responsive to student diversity, the author refers to one Australian school and its re-organization and also to recent Australian research on building inclusive school cultures.…

Standards challenge educators on a regular basis to integrate technology into their content and methods courses. Students today access the Internet which in many cases, if students see it on the Internet they believe it. In this article, the authors present an experience wherein teacher candidates were randomly assigned a twenty-minute lesson to…