Describes Southwest Missouri State University's efforts to transform opera from an event that the audience simply watches to an event that stimulates life-long learning and interest in the arts for rural public school children. The project incorporates elements of experiential and interactive learning to benefit both the student performers and the…

Despite its frequent use, there is little understanding of the concept of differential among upper high school and undergraduate students of physics. As a first step to identify the origin of this situation and to revert it, we have done a historic and epistemological study aimed at clarifying the role and the meaning of the differential in…

This article presents an activity that encourages students to create and analyze an organizational culture. In this activity, students perform two rounds of "keeping balloons in the air" with a brief interlude to try and improve performance. Next, they conduct an in-depth discussion of elements of organizational culture that affect productivity.…

This paper uses narrative and reflective methodologies to examine pedagogical practices that enable the production of meaningful relationships. I suggest that the term "fields of influence" encapsulates practices that enable some people to influence relationships with others. The narrative invites readers to consider how the embodied qualities…

Much of what teachers need to know to be successful is invisible to lay observers, leading to the view that teaching requires little formal study and to frequent disdain for teacher education programs. The weakness of traditional program models that are collections of largely unrelated courses reinforce this low regard. This article argues that we…

The purpose of the study was to investigate secondary students' understanding of the descriptive and predictive nature of teaching models used in representing compounds in introductory organic chemistry. Of interest were the relationships between teaching models, scientific models, and students' mental models and expressed models. The results from…

In this article, the author discusses the similarities and differences among educational psychology textbooks. Similarities among textbooks are: (1) general topics covered; (2) organizational scheme; and (3) visual appeal. Differences among textbooks are: (1) specific content; (2) writing style; (3) pedagogy; (4) design; and (5) ancillary package.…

Secondary schools are not meeting the needs of students, and the call has gone out for reform. The application of rigor, relevance, and relationships is a current model of instruction. One teacher can make a difference to a twice exceptional student who is struggling. They must create classroom environments that welcome diversity, not just in…

Many universities have experienced an increase in the intake of students and at the same time cuts in the budgets for teaching. Many teachers have discovered, for a number of reasons, that they have to adjust their teaching or even a course with short notice. These facts pose a challenge to the teachers' agility in adapting to changes--and in…

Beliefs, mandates, standards, understandings, essential questions, skills, knowledge, varied assessments, constructivist instructional methods and interactive strategies, time lines, resources: These are some of the basic elements of personalized teaching. Each is critical. All are intertwined. Personalized teaching takes students' individual…

Since the symbolization of an immigrant child is created and recreated in a process involving many stages and modifications of behavior, it is important for a teacher to observe and stimulate children. Reaching a satisfying balance may never be completely possible and the child may as an adult struggle all his/her life, but guidance toward such…

This article addresses the complex issue of lecturers' subject knowledge and teaching. It explores the subject knowledge models of Banks, Leach and Moon (expressed in their chapter "New understandings of teachers' pedagogic knowledge", in J. Leach and B. Moon's edited work "Learners and Pedagogy," 1999) and of Grossman, Wilson…

The purpose of this study was mainly to explore how theories of learning applied at English classes at Anatolian High Schools. It has been prepared through the findings of a 9th class English course implemented at an Anatolia High School under the control of Ministry of National Education and it involves four parts: Firstly, some brief explanation…

In the first part of this paper, conceptions of trainee teachers are defined, together with their importance for the process of teacher education. Many studies concerning teacher conceptions and models of teacher development show that the conceptions of instruction, knowledge, and teacher and learner roles are a key part of the teacher's…

After a brief review of integrative small group learning models that have appeared in the educational psychology literature, this article then looks into the group dynamics literature and describes one of that field's most well-documented findings: that interactions among group members change somewhat predictably over time. How theorists from…