This study investigated the effects of analogy on the elimination of students' misconceptions about direct current circuits, students' achievement and the attitudes towards physics lessons. The sample of this study consisted of 51 11th grade students from two different classes. While one of the classes was the experimental group where analogy was…

The course the author teaches in Cultural Diversity is a requirement for pre-service teachers seeking a Preliminary Teaching Credential as well as for in-service teachers who have returned to earn the California Teachers of English Learners (CTEL) Certificate. As part of this course the author requires a literature analysis assignment. In this…

Teaching and learning tools such as Moodle and Web 2.0 tools are appearing in K-12 classrooms; however, there is a lack of scholarly research to guide the implementation of these tools. The WebQuest model, a widely adopted inquiry-based model for online instruction, has instructional inadequacies and does not make the most of emerging…

Poems are usually expressed with elaborate rhetoric techniques, which make them hard to be understood. In this study, a cross-text annotation sharing mechanism is proposed to help students comprehend poetry by creating and sharing individual annotations. Furthermore, relevant annotations among various texts can be retrieved to stimulate and help…

Although the study of the Synoptic Problem has been the focus of scholarly attention for over two hundred years, the social learning theory known as Communities of Practice is a relatively recent phenomenon. This article describes a communities of practice approach to the study of the Synoptic Problem in an upper-division undergraduate course at a…

The Open and Distance Learning (ODL) has come to stay as an alternative mode to meet the higher educational requirements of diverse groups. Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), a system leader in India, plays a major role in giving access and equity, besides maintaining and coordinating standards of distance education in the country.…

Too often, teachers scratch their heads and ask, "What were my students thinking?" then answer, "I don't want to know." But teachers should want to know, and students should question their own thinking, as well. Critical thinking involves not just problem solving, creativity, analysis, and synthesis but also self-awareness of learning and learning…

In recent years, education quality and quality assessment have received a great deal of attention at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Bangladesh. Most of the HEIs in Bangladesh face severe resource constraints and find it difficult to improve education quality by improving inputs, such as better infrastructure and modernized classroom…

Long before deciding to become second language (L2) teachers, novice teachers have subconsciously developed conceptions of teaching cultivated by their experiences as learners in both general and language education classrooms. This "apprenticeship of observation" (Lortie, 1975) can foster deeply held beliefs about teaching that are carried with…

Stories, steeped in science content and full of specific information, can be brought into schools and homes through the power of live video streaming. Video streaming refers to the process of viewing video over the internet. These videos may be live (webcam feeds) or recorded. These stories are engaging and inspiring. They offer opportunities to…

Adobe[R] Presenter software provides educators with a tool to create narrated distance learning presentations. This article describes Adobe[R] Presenter's many features and explains which most strongly affect learning. Six Adobe[R] Presenter trainings were presented to 62 volunteers preparing to provide information at a public outreach event. One…

In this article, the author describes an open-ended drawing task that was used to discover young children's experiences with, and understandings of, the concept of mass. Mass is defined as the amount of matter in an object, and, like time, it cannot be seen (NSW Department of Education and Training Professional Support and Curriculum Directorate…

Teachers act out a play every day that includes soliloquies, dialogue, questions, cues, and demonstrations to evoke a response from their audiences. Learning requires that the students--or audience--see a new concept in a motivating and dynamic environment, a setting that provokes inquiry and an understanding of how new knowledge applies to real…

Students are using the tools of scientists when keeping a science notebook. They are also keeping track of their thinking and the changes to their original ideas. To bring students' existing ideas out for examination, the author implemented a "quick-write," which entails asking an open-ended question and having the students write all they know in…

Too often, the experiences that middle school students have in math do not connect to what they experience in elementary school. Although middle school teachers often have a sense of the content that students have learned in elementary school, the school structure and other factors can inhibit communication between elementary school and middle…