In this column, the author shares and comments on early childhood educators' use of guidance to foster young children's development and learning. He defines guidance as the commitment a teacher makes to teaching children how to solve their problems, rather than punishing them for having problems they haven't yet learned how to solve. The focus of…

Library media specialists need to embrace brain research and implement its findings into the teaching of information literary skills. Research in the past two decades has used imaging techniques to allow the study of brain functions when listening to music versus composing a song or when recalling a noun or verb. Imaging allows researchers to look…

Too often school library media specialists shy away from program assessments and fail to seek out the opportunity to participate in the review of their school or district for accreditation purposes. On a smaller scale, but just as critical, is the school library media specialist's reluctance to be judged professionally as his or her fellow…

This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study that investigated the experiences of distance learners beginning online Master of Education programmes. The research explored students' induction (referred to as "orientation" in some contexts) to the programmes, and three key areas are given consideration in this paper. First, the…

In distance learning provision in languages, fault correction and feedback can facilitate teacher?student dialogue. This article examines teachers' beliefs and assumptions about faults and the attitudes of both teachers and learners towards the correction process, all of which can play a key role in fostering this dialogue. Our findings are based…

The Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) project includes training elementary and secondary teachers. This training component, Ecology Explorers (EE), prepares teachers in grades 4 through 12 to teach about ecological principles and processes. The EE pedagogy employs scientific inquiry and data collection protocols.…

Assessments such as ranking exercises arguably level the playing field for stakeholders. Quality assurance may remain a challenge for consumers, but "public" assessments do provide a nominal element of independence or autonomy. This article outlines, from a German perspective, the way in which research assessments are frequently subject…

Measurement is a foundational topic in secondary school physics that must be taught to all beginning secondary education students in Kenya. The secondary level offers education for students who are aged between 12- and 18-years-old. Physics teachers in the Rift Valley province identified the topic of measurement as an area that is difficult to…

This article reflects on the findings of a nationally-funded research project which investigated the practice and impact of museum theatre at two UK museums: the Imperial War Museum, London, and the People's History Museum, Manchester. The research team tracked the museum experiences of eight groups of primary school children, half of whom…

This article reports on the value of using student-generated analogies with undergraduate science students as a strategy for promoting conceptual understanding. A quantitative study was undertaken involving students in four sections of an introductory chemistry course for prospective science majors attending a four year college in British…

Gender research demonstrates the important role played by the school in determining a gendered world-view and the influence of the school system on gender-role socialization. Most studies based on the constructivist school relate mainly to one of two issues: either the gender of the teachers themselves, or the gender-mapping of the curriculum…

What are my rights? What can I do if my rights are violated? Who has the right to do that?Questions like these are easily articulated by most students in the United States because from an early age they frequently receive socially diffused rights messages in virtually every aspect of their lives. The United States has been described as a highly…

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a coaching and teaching methodology that develops knowledge, abilities, and skills. It also encourages participation, collaborative investigation, and the resolution of authentic, "ill-structured" problems through the use of problem definition, teamwork, communication, data collection, decision-making,…

This study used structured analogue situations to examine factors that might influence teachers' preferences and opinions about language interventions. These factors included respondent groups (preschool vs. elementary school teachers), type of treatment approach (naturalistic vs. therapeutic), person delivering the intervention (classroom teacher…

The author presents a computer game that puts the player in the role of a central bank governor. The game is a stochastic simulation of a standard reduced form macro model, and the user interacts with this simulation by manipulating the interest rate. The problem the player faces is in many ways quite realistic--just as a real monetary authority,…