Dave Sherratt and Gill Donald teach children with autism at Mowbray School, North Yorkshire. Dave Sherratt also teaches at the University of Birmingham and is honorary research fellow at the University College of York St John. Gill Donald is also a specialist speech and language therapist for Hambleton and Richmondshire Primary Care Trust. In this…

This research focused on the concept of "force" ("CHI-KA-RA" in Japanese) in Newtonian mechanics. The primary objective was to develop a tool, based on metaphor, to interpret student thinking in learning scientific topics. The study provides an example of using the tool to trace the process of mutual changes in thinking during a dialog among…

By understanding the different types of memory, the neurophysiology of brain chemical and anatomical changes associated with memory, and the ways to enhance the memory process, teachers can utilize proven technique--and develop their own--to guide students over that bleak terrain of memorization. From simplest recall of awareness, memory skills…

This study investigated the relationship between theory of mind and executive functioning in children with autistic spectrum disorders through a training study. Ten children were trained on theory of mind, whilst ten were trained in executive function. Seven children were assigned to a control group, receiving no intervention. Training programmes…

Lev Vygotsky was an educational theorist and psychologist of extraordinarily wide knowledge whose major writings deal with the entire learning-teaching-development enterprise. Despite wide-ranging interests towards Vygotskian theory, the issue of imagination remains outside of the main line of the general inquiries. Thus there is a gap in that…

NIER (National Institute of Educational Research, 2004) survey revealed that the most common attitude of Japanese high school students to mathematics is that "it is not useful in daily life but must be learnt for entrance examinations". It was also clarified that only 3.2 percent of mathematics teachers use computers in their classes.…

The purpose of this study was to examine the instructional effectiveness of different levels of chunking (simple visual/text and complex visual/text), different forms of feedback (item-by-item feedback, end-of-test feedback and no feedback), and use of instructional gaming (game and no game) in complementing animated programmed instruction on a…

The selection of appropriate teaching models with which to bring about meaningful learning is an important and fundamental concern of the professional educator. This paper describes the development of a matrix of models and effects that was a three step process involving the compilation of a list of effects; the development of effect categories by…

For years, mainstream thinking about math anxiety assumed that people fear math because they are bad at it. However, a growing body of research shows a much more complicated relationship between math ability and anxiety. It is true that people who fear math have a tendency to avoid math-related classes, which decreases their math competence.…

In this paper we focus on some of the findings of the science education research community in the area of representations and problem solving. Problem solving depends on the construction and manipulation of mental models (internal representations) in the mind. A large knowledge base (declarative, procedural, strategic, situational, and schematic…

A student's misreading of the word "statues" as "sanctuaries" and an application of miscue analysis show how students' egos can be boosted. The student expressed surprise when informed of his misreading, wondering how he could confuse the words. The student's reading specialist explained to the student that his…

The booklet describes the efforts planned by the Washington Research Organization (UWRO) to study ways in which generalization of skills may be facilitated by severely retarded individuals. It is explained that activities of UWRO are organized around four major tasks: descriptive and laboratory research; research in natural educational settings;…

Tallahassee's New Adventure in Learning project seeks to show that positive thinking can generate important advances in the classroom. (Editor)

In making the transition between the research and theory on goal structures and the literature on open education, five of the more pervasive themes of open education were discussed. (Author/RK)

Because differences among students in modes of thinking bear directly on teaching methods, the author presented some research that has been done on individual differences in thinking modalities and considered its relevance to teaching. (Author/RK)