Suggests that children's literature used skillfully in tandem with textbooks makes the content curriculum more palatable, comprehensible, and memorable. Offers several teaching ideas. (FL)

Free-written descriptions of self and others were obtained from 190 adolescent boys and girls. Descriptions became longer, more "psychological," and more organized over adolescence. Modes of constructing persons were positively correlated across different stimulus persons. Self-descriptions tended to be more person-centered than…

Investigation of the extent to which young bilingual children's code differentiation correlated with language mixing revealed that children who avoided using their other language when naming pictures of objects which were not known in one of the languages showed significantly less mixing in their speech than children who freely substituted words…

Identifies and discusses the epistemological roots of various terms that have been used to describe student conceptions in the literature with a view to suggest which term science eductors should adopt. Argues that "alternative conceptions" is preferable to "alternative frameworks" for use in describing student conceptions in…

Calls for differentiating between three kinds of studies of students' conceptions in science, namely descriptive studies, explanatory studies, and studies attempting to foster conceptual change. Cites the literature about student perceptions and science instruction. (TW)

Argues that "student talk" is an important developmental activity in mathematics. Gives suggestions that will facilitate student talk. (PK)

Describes seven estimation and counting activities appropriate for an early childhood classroom. Includes suggested methods for going beyond the prescribed activities. (PK)

Discusses some important components of instruction on fractions in the early childhood years. Argues that fractions should be included in the early childhood curriculum and suggests various activities and materials. (PK)

Advocates the accuracy of the common belief that the possession of energy drives, gives potential for, or accounts for change. Argues that the term "free energy" or entropy represents the possibility of change. Recommends that educators reexamine their use of these terms to prevent common misconceptions about energy. (TW)

Explains a formal scheme for analyzing biological communications for implicit structural themes using principles of kinetic structural analysis. Presents study findings which focused on the role of sequential communication structures for enhancing reception learning of knowledge and conceptual schemes. (ML)

Five experiments examined the developmental relation between attention to target and context information and target memory among second and fifth graders and college adults. Results show that when the context is meaningfully related to target information, adults are less selective than children and are more likely to attend to context information.…

Tested the hypothesis that young children's tendency to draw horizontal or vertical objects perpendicularly to an oblique surface reflects their preference for perpendicular drawings as conceptually correct depictions. (Author/RH)

Argues that new vocabulary words should be presented in concept clusters and related to prior knowledge to facilitate organization in memory. Presents a sample lesson for science vocabulary. (HOD)

Describes an approach to assessing the use of rules in solving problems related to Newton's third law of motion. Discusses the problems used, method of questioning, scoring of problem sets, and a general overview of the use of the technique in aiding the teacher in dealing with student's conceptual levels. (JM)

The hidden curriculum of schools gives students an image of science in which scientific truths are seen as a collection of facts, scientists as clever people, scientific explanations as true because they "make sense," and reality as consisting of observation. (Author/DCS)