"Improving Mathematics in the Early Years and Key Stage 1" reviews the best available evidence to offer five recommendations for developing the maths skills of 3-7-year olds. Recommendations include integrating maths into different activities throughout the day -- for example, at registration and snack time -- to familiarise children…

This book shows educators how to rethink teaching by challenging their beliefs about knowledge and learning. It helps teachers organize for student learning rather than plan for teacher telling by applying constructivist learning theory in the classroom. It presents a constructivist perspective on how to arrange classroom events for student…

Examines the development of students' understandings about fractions during six weeks of instruction. Reports that all students possessed informal knowledge disconnected from their knowledge of fraction symbols and procedures and that knowledge of rote procedures often interfered with students' attempts to build on their informal knowledge.…

Discusses the frequent misconception displayed by students that chromosome structure is a function of chromosome number or ploidy. Provides detailed analyses of the evidence concerning the prevalence of this ploidy/structure misconception among students of introductory genetics and the potential sources for inaccurate communication that it can…

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)

Identifies the unsophisticated assumptions and conjectures, both intuitive and empirical in character, underlying secondary school science students' (n=25) portrayal of scientific knowledge and its production. Structured interview protocols explored not only the students' substantive knowledge base but, perhaps more important, their ability to…

Fifty-three elementary school children were tested on Incidental Science Knowledge, i.e., knowledge acquired by chance outside school, and the results obtained were correlated with intellectual development and cognitive style as measured by interviews and group testing, respectively. Indicates that cognitive style and misconception play a…

Reports results of procedures directed at isolating and identifying students' difficulties in comprehending the concepts involved in lessons about gas exchange and respiration. Indicates that pupils (n=137) had deficient understanding of prerequisite concepts and tended to operate at the concrete operational level, whereas the highly abstract…

Examines the proposed definition of biological literacy as the understanding of a small number of pervasive biological principles appropriate to making informed personal and societal decisions. Utilizes the content of a major daily newspaper to adjust biology instruction to focus on this notion of biological literacy. Discusses benefits and…

Certain literacy knowledge acquired prior to the initiation of beginning reading instruction is necessary for early reading success. Unfortunately, children from low- income families and who are likely to attend schools with low reading performance are less likely to have acquired such knowledge. Taking professionals and students step-by-step…

People use and extend their knowledge of the physical world constantly. Understanding how this fluency is achieved would be an important milestone in understanding human learning and intelligence, as well as a useful guide for constructing machines that learn. This paper presents a theoretical framework that is being developed in an attempt to…

Research has established that students generally possess conceptions relevant to curricular topics before they begin to study them and that these preconceptions often persist despite instruction on scientific theories which contradict them. Discrepancies between students' post instruction conceptions and the scientific theories as taught often…

This book was written for practicing primary (elementary) school teachers and for anyone concerned with inservice or preservice science teacher education. The overall purpose of the book is to identify ways in which ideas about electricity and simple circuits can be taught effectively in primary school classrooms. This book is based on in-depth…