These five issues provide news and support to parents who home school their children. Each issue contains news items and a substantial resource section which provides book evaluations, directory additions, resource lists, resource persons in the fields of law, psychology, and school districts, pen-pals, and advertisements. The February/March 1996…

Improving reading instruction has been the primary focus at the Benchmark School in Media, Pennsylvania. This book describes the various phases of Benchmark's development of a program to create strategic learners, thinkers, and problem solvers across the curriculum. The goal is to provide teachers and administrators with a handbook that can be…

This volume is the flagship volume in a series on cognitive strategy instruction. While strategies instruction is particularly appropriate for the learning disabled, it is also very useful for normal learners, especially inner city and minority children. The series focuses on conveying strategies instruction methods for use with these children.…

The knowledge that students bring to the classroom has been a well-studied domain. The types of knowledge studied have included content knowledge as well as epistemological beliefs that students hold. This study focuses specifically on preservice elementary education students' understanding of science and science learning as a meaning-making…

Background information on natural polymers, synthetic polymers, and the properties of polymers is presented as an introduction to this curriculum guide. Details are provided on the use of polymer products in consumer goods, polymer recycling, polymer densities, the making of a polymer such as GLUEP, polyvinyl alcohol, dissolving plastics, polymers…

This simulation allows students to participate in the "ways" of ancient Chinese history and culture. The unit is organized into five major phases or "li's." Students may spend about one week on activities in each "li" which focuses on a major aspect of Chinese history, culture, or geography. In each "li"…

This simulation allows students to explore the lives of the great rulers of the Mayan culture. Students learn the mysterious history of the Maya by decoding glyphs, investigating the unusual religion of the Maya, unraveling the complex Mayan calendar, and discovering the Mayan number system's secret meanings. Specific cooperation skills are taught…

This simulation allows students to travel north through the six divisions of the Nile River, with each major phase of the simulation called a "cataract". Students earn travel points as they sail the Nile from its source in Central Africa through the Sixth Cataract, all the way to the First Cataract, and then on to the delta where it…

This paper presents a comparative case study of two students learning in an urban environment but characterized by high motivation, effective discipline, small classes, generous academic support, counseling, and educational equipment. The primary question driving the study relates to the challenges to meaningful learning in a special science high…

A project was conducted in a military training setting to test the acceleration of the development of complex, technical problem-solving skills through intentional transfer of existing knowledge and skill to novel tasks. Sherlock 2, the model devised, consisted of high quality device models using illustrative equipment diagrams from actual…

The focus here is on learning by school-age children, assisted by the family and/or peers, and supported and managed by professional teachers. The author/educator, who specializes in researching paired learning, provides an outline of the essential concepts of peer-assisted and parent-assisted learning, followed by discussion of some specific…

A program was undertaken to teach organizational and study skills to middle and high school students. The targeted population consisted of sixth grade students in a social studies class and ninth grade students in a world geography class. The schools are located in a middle-to-lower class suburban community near a large midwestern city. An…

One of the issues a college writing instructor grapples with in teaching writing is how best to structure collaborative groups to maximize benefit for each student in a multicultural classroom where many students might fairly be considered "marginalized"--to create an environment in which they become "insiders." Criteria sets for forming group…

This paper focuses on the cultural aspects of research in mathematics learning. The shift to a more socio-cultural emphasis in mathematics education research is valid. The paper explores this point by examining challenges to the former research paradigm. These challenges include culturally-based mathematical knowledge and hidden values in…

Liverpool John Moores University (JMU) is one of the largest universities in the United Kingdom. It is a multi-faculty institution with in excess of 20,000 students. Its first learning strategy, in 1995, sought to identify and make explicit the University's commitment to learning development and to integrate this in the context of other University…