Computer-based testing (CBT) to assess second language ability has undergone remarkable development since Garret (1991) described its purpose as "the computerized administration of conventional tests" in "The Modern Language Journal." For instance, CBT has made possible the delivery of more authentic tests than traditional paper-and-pencil tests.…

The disproportionate representation of poor, working class, and racial/ethnic minority students in special education is a wicked policy problem because its formulation involves choosing among alternative problem interpretations and associated consequences. Integrating the work of Patricia Hill Collins and Nancy Fraser, the authors propose…

A major reason why dyslexia is likely to be missed or mislabeled in an intellectually gifted child is the lack of a specific, clearly recognized definition to enable diagnosis of dyslexia. It's crucial that adults working with gifted students understand that average or even above reading comprehension does not by itself guarantee that a gifted…

Meat thermometers can be awkward to use in terms of placement and avoidance of bones. Because of these problems, each year 30 million Thanksgiving turkeys have a built-in thermometer that pops up when the turkey is properly cooked. Turkey timers are an example of how engineering solved a common, everyday problem. The following 5E learning cycle…

"The power of two" is a Royal Institution (Ri) mathematics "master-class". It is a two-and-a half-hour interactive learning session, which, with varying degree of coverage and depth, has been run with students from Year 5 to Year 11, and for teachers. The master class focuses on an historical episode--the Josephus…

Although professional learning communities have gained wide acceptance as a way for teachers to support one another's learning, there is less attention paid to the need for principals to meet together to enhance learning and leadership. Three years ago Sterrett (an elementary school principal) and Haas (a high school principal in the same…

Most students struggle when faced with complex and open-ended tasks because the strategies taught in schools and universities simply require finding and applying the correct formulae or strategy to answer well-structured, algorithmic problems. For students to develop their ability to solve ill-structured problems, they must first believe that…

In the first part to this article, the author described three stages that he believes are effective starting points for translating familiar classroom activities into mathematics-with-information and communications technology (ICT) lessons that exploit the power of variation to focus student attention. In this second part, the author continues to…

This study examines students' use of proportional reasoning in high school physics problem-solving in a West African school setting. An in-depth, constructivist, and interpretive case study was carried out with six physics students from a co-educational senior secondary school in Nigeria over a period of five months. The study aimed to elicit…

This article examines the claims of the school subject technology education (called Design and Technology in some countries) as a vehicle for inculcating creativity in the curriculum, by introducing children to the world of problem solving and invention. Core foundational underpinnings of the subject are explored, including its hands-on nature,…

This paper presents a study about learning and the problem solving process identified among junior high school pupils participating in robotics projects in the Lego Mindstorm environment. The research was guided by the following questions: (1) How do pupils come up with inventive solutions to problems in the context of robotics activities? (2)…

After the onset of formal schooling, little is known about the development of children's understanding of the arithmetic concepts of inversion and associativity. On problems of the form a+b-b (e.g., 3+26-26), if children understand the inversion concept (i.e., that addition and subtraction are inverse operations), then no calculations are needed…

The rapid growth of information over the last 30 or 40 years has made it impossible for educators to prepare students for the future without teaching them how to be effective information managers. The American Library Association refers to those students who manage information effectively as "information literate." Information literacy instruction…

Depression is the primary emotional condition for which help is sought. Depressed people often report persistent rumination, which involves analysis, and complex social problems in their lives. Analysis is often a useful approach for solving complex problems, but it requires slow, sustained processing, so disruption would interfere with problem…

Data from international comparisons of educational performance provided by the PISA study show Russia is among those countries that are not highly ranked on students' basic skills, and is poorly ranked on ability to apply knowledge to problem solving. Data also show large regional differences within Russia. (Contains 29 notes, 2 tables, and 6…