Provides guidelines for educators to prepare for potentially difficult parent conferences and to conduct them to a successful conclusion. Suggestions include anticipating concerns, accentuating the positive, listening to parents, being truthful, being firm, being polite, offering solutions and assistance, asking for suggestions, admitting…

Describes an analytical chemistry course restructured around the use of cooperative groups to help students become active learners in a non-competitive environment. Five years of experience with the course indicates that the syllabus covers almost exactly the same content as old courses and that test scores compare favorably on the national level.…

Reviews classroom management strategies that are child-centered and consistent with constructivist approaches to education, in which teachers create situations that facilitate learning. Describes strategies including techniques for establishing dialog, cognitive interventions (including self management and conflict resolution), cognitive…

Researchers from four projects with a problem-solving approach to teaching and learning multidigit number concepts and operations describe a common framework of conceptual structures children construct for multidigit numbers, and categories of methods children devise for multidigit addition and subtraction. Conceptions include unitary, decade and…

Custom mapping, an experiential learning strategy used in adventure education, provides a general metaphoric activity and then requires the group to customize it into their own "meta-map." This approach encourages collaboration, gives the group a high degree of autonomy in developing creative solutions, and has the potential to generate…

Explores what is important when choosing a mathematics word problem and when modifying it to suit particular students' backgrounds and cultures. For example, potentially good problems have multiple entry and exit points which can have several right answers, blending of different mathematical ideas, linkages to problems in other situations, and…

Criticizes the National Science Education Standards for using an example lesson that contradicts support for students engaging in scientific inquiry. Suggests a multiculturally inclusive approach engaging students in a role-playing activity as members of the University of Alexandria. Students are involved in scientific inquiry with Eratosthenes,…

Describes teaching strategies in which children are encouraged to develop computational procedures that are meaningful to them. Authors state that classroom observation reveals most primary students to be capable of developing their own accurate solution procedures for multi-digit addition and subtraction as well as for simple multiplication and…

Students investigate the concept of motion by making simple paper airplanes and flying them in the classroom. Students are introduced to conversion factors to calculate various speeds. Additional activities include rounding decimal numbers, estimating, finding averages, making bar graphs, and solving problems. Offers ideas for extension such as…

Asks the questions (1) what is critical thinking in music?; (2) why is it so important that we engage students in it?; and (3) what does it have to do with music education? Answers these questions and elaborates on the notion of critical thinking as an educational goal and tool. (MJP)

Social problem solving, effectance motivation, and information processing were studied with 38 Finnish eight-year olds using the LOGO computer programming language learned through discovery learning. Results suggest that LOGO promotes the development of problem-solving skills if each student receives sufficient support from the teacher. (SLD)

Discusses student empowerment and the importance of including students in planning and implementing conflict resolution programs. The paper describes the "Winning Against Violent Environments" (WAVE) program which trains students to be peer mediators who train other students and adults to be mediators and conflict managers. (SM)

Data are presented from the first-year of a 4-year research project that aims to design a model for describing exemplary communicative practice using signed classroom discourse in the teaching of students who are deaf. Episodes are presented to illustrate how 10 teachers engage in dialogic knowledge building and exemplary communicative practice.…

A consultation framework with strong theoretical and conceptual support is presented, called the Collaborative Model for Promoting Competence and Success (COMPASS). The overall goal of COMPASS is to provide indirect intervention to help students with autism achieve competence. COMPASS was also designed to provide collaboration among educators and…

Twelve practical strategies that can be used by classroom teachers to prevent behavioral escalation are discussed, including reinforce calm, know the triggers, pay attention to anything unusual, do not escalate, intervene early, know the function of problem behavior, use extinction wisely, teach prosocial behavior, and teach academic survival…