Looking after pets provides several benefits in terms of children's social interactions, and factual and conceptual knowledge about these animals. In this study we investigated effects of rearing experiences on children's factual knowledge and alternative conceptions about animals. Data obtained from 1,541 children and 7,705 drawings showed very…

Pragmatics is included in one of four communicative competences (Canale, 1980). It is necessary and important to teach pragmatics at school in our globalized world in order to avoid as much as misunderstanding, which is likely to stem from cultural difference. As a result, greater importance should be attached to diverse customs and pragmatics.…

The shadow cast by HIV reaches beyond individuals diagnosed with the condition. It touches the lives of family members, friends, coworkers, and many others. One group in particular that feels these effects keenly is the children of HIV-positive parents. With improved treatments that have extended the life expectancies of HIV-infected people and…

This is a case of one novice White teacher whose strong commitment to becoming a culturally relevant teacher was hindered by her struggle to develop meaningful connections to the home community of her mostly African American students. Using a hybrid methodology of action research, discourse analysis, and critical interpretive analysis of…

Today's interconnected technical environment creates unprecedented opportunities while simultaneously introducing risks. With economic, social and personal interactions increasingly occurring in technology-mediated settings new vulnerabilities are continually being introduced. This dissertation seeks to improve extant understanding of how…

The fact that online learning has been successful for many schools across the country does not mean that it has been free of challenges. Indeed, there are numerous issues and challenges in online learning. Few policymakers anticipated that any space time, any space place learning was possible when most education laws were authored over the past 50…

United States Department of Agriculture defines food insecure as answering affirmatively to three or more food insecurity questions describing a household's ability to acquire enough food. Households indicating low levels of food insecurity (one or two affirmative responses) are considered food secure. This paper compares the characteristics of…

This paper reports on the learning of difficult and complex concepts, the characteristics of these concepts that make them difficult for students to learn and understand well, the kinds of misconceptions students acquire, and the difficulty of changing these mistaken beliefs. A scheme, the Conceptual Stability Scheme, is presented for analyzing a…

Although much recent attention has focused on gaps in the achievement of different groups of students, the problem has been with us for decades. This paper presents the problem as one of reducing variation in students' achievement, and reviews the work of renowned educator Benjamin Bloom on this problem. Bloom argued that to reduce variation in…

As follow-up to a previous article "Avoid Misconceptions When Teaching about Plants," the author identifies fifty additional misconceptions. Undergeneralizations are added to the list of oversimplifications, obsolete concepts, terms, misidentifications, and flawed research. A glossary at the end of the article compares words used in botany with…

In a series of studies over the past several years, the authors have examined the extent of psychological misconceptions, their strength, sources, and various factors that may contribute to reducing these, including individual differences. Generally, introductory psychology students come into the course with many popular misconceptions. These…

Examines which of the warrants of authority, coherence, and empirical evidence were invoked by grade 8 science classroom participants in their daily interactions, and whether these were linked to particular teaching referents. Results indicate that when the teacher embraced a context exposure referent at the expense of constructivism, the warrant…

Discusses "impact factor," a measure of journal impact defined by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) and available in Journal Citation Reports. Argues that "impact factor" is misnamed and misused, suggesting an alternative name and interpretation of the measure, and proposes two new measures to assess the impact of…

A 1995 survey of 590 children of Nebraska school administrators revealed that the majority of administrators begin their careers when they have small children. Nearly two-thirds of respondents attended the same school where their parents worked. A majority of respondents liked being administrators' children. Teasing bothered many, but being the…

Presents a model lesson that demonstrates how teachers can provide experiences to close the conceptual gaps for deaf students and provide a common base before launching into new concepts. Discusses the constructivist paradigm, misconceptions, the Learning Cycle, strategies for teaching deaf students, and assessment of learning for students who are…