Most colleges and universities have adopted course management systems (e.g., Blackboard, WebCT). Worldwide faculty and students use them for class communications and discussions. The discussion tools provided by course management systems, while powerful, often do not offer adequate capabilities to appraise communication patterns, online behaviors,…

Visual Phonics is an instructional program to provide print awareness, alphabet knowledge, and sound-letter correspondence for children with hearing loss who experience difficulty developing a foundation of phonemic awareness skills. Its purpose is "to clarify the sound symbol relationship between spoken English and print" (Waddy-Smith…

This study investigated the learning-from-practice skills that pre-service teachers possess when they enter teacher preparation programs in the United States. Two subskills were hypothesized to represent, at least in part, what is required to learn from practice: (1) the ability to collect evidence about students' learning in order to analyze the…

The research reported in this paper concerns the development of children's skills of interpreting and evaluating evidence in science. Previous studies have shown that school teaching often places limited emphasis on the development of these skills, which are necessary for children to engage in scientific debate and decision-making. The research,…

This study sought to explore what sort of relationships exist between students' number sense and their problem solving ability, and the contribution of the teacher's teaching style and the students' learning style towards students' performance in these two respective areas. The problem solving ability and number sense proficiency of three classes…

With the implementation of the inclusion concept in public school classes, the ability of the general physical educator to effectively teach all of his or her students has been tested. This is particularly true with some students who have a receptive language disability (e.g., deaf, traumatic brain injury), an expressive language disability (e.g.,…

This study explored kindergartners' and first graders' collaborative processes to understand the nature of peer collaboration and the learning opportunities afforded by peer discourse. Data were drawn from 6 dyads who participated in a computer writing project for 2 school semesters. Children's videotaped interactions were analyzed with the focus…

Texas Ranch House, produced by Thirteen/WNET and Wall to Wall Television, is a dynamic look at life in Texas in the 1860s, before the development of modem conveniences. In addition to the video program series, Texas Ranch House boasts an extensive interactive website (www.pbs.org/wnetlranchhouse) that will be of interest to teachers and students.…

Academics have a long history of claiming and defending the superiority of verbal over visual for representing knowledge. By dismissing imagery as mere decoration, they have upheld the sanctity of print for academic discourse. However, in the last decade, digital technologies have broken down the barriers between words and pictures, and many of…

In this article, the author describes a resource she made to teach Y2 children about fractions. Her resource was designed to act as a visual aid that would reinforce the children's knowledge and understanding of what a fraction was. It would visually demonstrate how many halves and quarters are in one whole, how many quarters are in a half and…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a 13-week media enhanced content intervention based in popular culture relative to student attitude and student enjoyment in college students enrolled in beginning level self-defense courses. Participants (n = 81) were assigned to either control or experimental groups within one of four…

A distinguishing characteristic of expert teachers appears to be an excellent memory (Berliner, 1986; Tan, 1997). Possessing an excellent memory aids experts in building a substantial knowledge base relative to teaching and learning. Despite its importance, the memory skills of expert teachers have yet to be investigated. Therefore, the purpose of…

One major objective of programs for persons with severe or profound intellectual and multiple disabilities is to teach these persons occupational and vocational tasks and to enable them to carry out these tasks independently (Davis, Brady, Williams, & Burta, 1992; Lancioni et al., 1991; Steed & Lutzker, 1997). The performance of such tasks has…

Few beginners find learning to program easy. There are many factors at work in this phenomenon with some being simply inherent in the subject itself, while others have more to do with deficiencies in learning methods and resources. As a result, many programming environments, software applications, and learning tools have been developed to address…

Educators increasingly recognize that students need a more contemporary, multimodal literacy that requires them to examine how their written, oral, visual, and electronic modes of communication inform one another to generate meaning. Helping students hone their multimodal literacies will enable them to develop PowerPoint presentations in ways that…