A study of the effect of the use of calculators on student computational ability is reported. Results showed that treatment groups using calculators gained significantly more whole number computational ability than control groups not using calculators. Interaction between sex of student and calculator usage was not significant. (DT)

Presented is the argument that educational innovation can be overdone, and that increased teacher efficiency does not necessarily relate to improved quality of teaching. (SL)

Outlines a literacy program among the Maori and Aborigines in the South Pacific. Three stages are implemented and a fourth is being developed. Focus is on the social-cultural context and its relationship to literacy. (ABM)

Research shows that children of about 10 years can remember photographs of faces upside down almost as well as those shown upright and are easily fooled by simple disguises. This ability to encode orientation-specific configurations of a face may reflect maturational changes in the right cerebral hemisphere. (MLH)

Discusses a study which focused on adolescents' perception of their local environment by asking 200 15-year-old students to produce free recall maps of their own local areas. Study results indicate that the individual strives towards an adjustive structuring of his environment to self-perceived societal needs. For journal availability, see SO 505…

This paper compares the early life, background, and education of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. It makes the case that an adaptation of the curve developed by C. Quigley can be used to trace the motivations of both Piaget and Vygotsky in creating their respective theories. The analysis also reveals the adversity that each man faced. Although they…

This study assessed the learning outcomes of students with disabilities who attended the "New Student Orientation Program" at California State University, Northridge in the fall 2003 semester. Forty-two students completed a locally developed pretest and posttest that contained 25 core questions. These questions covered the content areas of…

This digest focuses on the major changes that college and university faculty have designed in their undergraduate professional education programs in three areas: accounting, nursing, and teacher education. Reforms in each of these programs are reviewed. The changes seen in these three professional education programs offer lessons for faculty in…

Some perspectives on the potential of undergraduates' formal and informal experiences outside of the classroom are detailed. The paper presents historical information beginning with the concern of inculcating good manners and habits of responsibility as learning objectives for the extracurriculum. It discusses the analogy of the extracurriculum…

This study examined the use of student notebooks in three fifth-grade science classrooms during a unit on electric circuits to determine the extent to which notebooks might serve as a tool for monitoring teaching and learning. Analyses of classroom contexts indicated that teachers promoted notebook writing through explicit instructions and…

The aim of this article is to draw a distinction between qualification and competence. Although academic institutions, organizations, companies, and schools are focusing on competence development as the natural answer to new technical and societal demands, no one has provided a satisfactory operational definition of "competence." A…

C. Dweck (1983) suggested that children hold one of two types of beliefs in their own intelligence: a fixed entity with which they are born (entity theory) or a belief that intelligence can be changed over time (incremental theory). These two beliefs were studied through the responses of 22 second graders and observations of their behavior. The…

In a question-and-answer format a number of topics related to learning and cognitive theory in educational applications are discussed. Most of the discussions consider the contrast between U.S. and Japanese educational practices. The topics include: (1) behavioral and cognitive approaches to learning; (2) metacognition and its implications for…

This book outlines factors and practices that directly and indirectly influence the adjustment, learning, and development of distance education students. The book also provides a detailed overview of student affairs responses to distant student needs, stressing the importance of building communities at a distance, and using a case study to…

Over the last ten or so years this researcher's educational focus has been on providing a science education program that is both liberating and empowering for students. Although there have been a number of motivating themes, the central one has been his work with student images of the future. He has taken these seriously and used them to inform by…