Refutes myths about adult learners: (1) adults require less instructor time; (2) adults desire to return to school; (3) adults are capable decision makers; (4) adults bring valuable experiences to the classroom; and (5) adults know what they want. (Contains 26 references.) (SK)

Describes a study that explored the parameter-related misconceptions of two college students in an introductory programming course. Explains how they were able to construct correctly functioning modular programs by making adjustments to formal parameter lists; discusses results within a constructivist framework; and suggests implications for…

An updated version of a 1956 questionnaire concerning misconceptions about mental retardation was administered to 558 individuals. The relations of demographic, experiential, and contact characteristics of 1986 respondents were explored as were comparisons with the 1956 sample. (Author/DB)

Twelve literacy goals include new attitude toward illiteracy; clarification of the concept; articulated child-adult strategy; attention to women's needs; updating the field; attention to pedagogy; a literate environment; quality; better data; attention to preschool literacy; literacy in the context of basic education; and international cooperation…

Analysis of (n=92) university students' construction of visual representations (Venn diagrams) of eight set expressions found competent and error-prone students constructed and used procedures to complete set translation tasks, and two-thirds of observed errors arose from consistent implementation of ill-formed procedures. (Author/MKR)

Contends that the role of mistakes and corrections of mistakes in classroom practice reveals a certain philosophy of mathematics and that the way mistakes are handled promotes such an implicit philosophy. (MKR)

Describes mainstreaming at the Dowling Urban Environment Learning Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota--a fully inclusive, racially mixed, K-6 magnet school that is expensive but well worth the cost. This school has a clear purpose, few signs of emotional exhaustion among staff, and little depersonalization. Dowling's ambience is in marked contrast to…

Debunks various myths related to the adventure experience: rural idyll versus urban squalor, the British character, leadership potential, adventure as substitute for aggression, role models, adventure experience as a route to political and social awareness, adventure is environmentally friendly, economic regeneration, the hills are free, adventure…

Explores the nature of the changes in students' explanations (n=50) of evolutionary scenarios. Teleological and Lamarckian explanations accounted for over half of the students' explanation on the pretest but dropped to less than 20% on the posttest. (ZWH)

Homelessness in rural Iowa is proportionately high but well hidden, obliging the rural homeless to discursively and materially relate their needs to a placeless condition of being defined by agencies, institutions, and academics. Positioning the homeless outside of social space places them in the space of nature, with implications for the meaning…

Presents an analysis of the treatment of Newton's Laws and relativistic mass in the nine most popular college physics textbooks. Concludes that only two textbooks give a correct interpretation of relativistic mass and only a single text gives a correct discussion of Newton's First Law. (JRH)

Max Weber has been unfairly pegged as a detached, impersonal scientist or a structural-functional analyst of bureaucratic design. Today, Weber is garnering respect for his attention to cultural and historical contexts, his "iron-cage" conceptions of bureaucracy, his creative meditations that move across all levels of analysis, his range…

Presents a situation in which differential calculus is used with inverse trigonometric tangent functions to maximize an angle measure. A negative distance measure ultimately results, requiring a reconsideration of assumptions inherent in the initial figure. (Author/MKR)

The (media-induced) aura of failure surrounding schools is so pervasive that even friends of education misinterpret data. Four Bracey reports published in "Phi Delta Kappan" amassed substantial positive evidence, but the media choose to accentuate the negative. Given the severe decline in other social institutions, schools are performing…

Starts with an imaginary conversation between Ella Flagg Young and John Dewey discussing what leadership should be. A more serious critique identifies fallacies in traditional thought about leadership. Leadership theorists must abandon these fallacies and imagine leadership that emphasizes coordinating resources for teaching professionals; creates…