Reviews current research on infant and toddler physical development, cognitive development, and language acquisition. Provides a list of suggested activities, safety concerns, and opportunities for caregivers to enhance child development. (SD)

Describes classroom activities designed to make an elementary class' study of people's contributions to Alberta's (Canada) history more culturally relevant for both the native and non-native students. The activities centered on student research of famous local people of the past. The projects included writing assignments, interviews, and artworks.…

Provides suggestions for meaningful field trips through collaborations between schools and informal education organizations. Discusses guidelines including ensuring connections to curriculum, connecting to multiple content areas, including informal educators in planning, ensuring developmental appropriateness, involving informal educators in…

Describes a constructivist teaching exercise consisting of a group of teachers involved in regular instructional conversations. Raises issues related to conceptualizing frameworks for teaching and developing new teacher assessments, arguing that new assessments should reflect a comprehensive view of teaching based on a broad continuum of teaching…

Investigates the relationship of attitudes and cultural background to reading comprehension in the second language (L2) of Israeli Arab students learning Hebrew and Israeli Jewish and Canadian Arab students learning English. Results showed that the motivation of students to learning their L2 was instrumental rather than integrative, regardless of…

Discusses the need to polish the foreign language skills of second-language teachers during their professional training. This training should concentrate primarily on the improvement of confidence in spontaneous target language use and grammatical accuracy and should also emphasize pedagogical development and reflection. (one reference) (CK)

The Ann Arbor Public Schools and University of Michigan partnership created the Foundations of Science (FOS) course, designed to integrate the high school science sequence into a three-year project based upon real-life science investigations. Specially designed software, information technology, and Internet resources were utilized. Student…

Asserts that most research into the effects of high school economics curriculum upon performance in college level economics courses fails to consider that secondary economics education rarely teaches micro- and macroeconomic concepts. Discovers that any gap in learning between students in economics is narrowed by the first semester in college.…

Investigates the reliability of measures of linguistic accuracy in second language writing. The study uses a holistic scale, error-free T-units, and an error classification system on the essays of English-as-a-Second-Language students and discusses why disagreements arise within a rater and between raters. (24 references) (Author/CK)

Examines the role of women's literary societies in the United States during the first half of the 17th century. The reading societies provided a space for intellectual growth, companionship, and support. They also created a pre-feminist role model of a literate and competent woman, the "learned woman." (MJP)

Reintroduces and updates the geographic profile as a visualization technique for representing and analyzing the structure of geographical information. A computer software-generated profile focuses on specific information (persons per square mile in selected cities) and represents that information spatially on a graph. (MJP)

Describes the development of an instrument designed to assess the language competence of second language learners by observing natural interactions in transitional bilingual classrooms. A pilot study that assessed the social language of 24 bilingual fifth-graders in a summer math program provided data for examining the instrument's reliability and…

Profiles the efforts of the American Social History Project (ASHP). Since 1981 the ASHP has developed curriculum materials and workshops emphasizing the role of labor, women, and other minority groups in U.S. history. Includes two activities illustrating 19th-century social history. (MJP)

Examines the techniques used in teaching an abnormal psychology class in a multimedia environment with two computers and a variety of audiovisual equipment. Students respond anonymously to various questions via keypads mounted on their desks, then immediately view and discuss summaries of their responses. (MJP)

Identifies and outlines key considerations that should influence the selection of instructional technology. Provides specific questions to ask about hardware, multimedia use, computer assisted instruction, and the Internet. Considers specific applications (and limitations) of these technologies with regard to specific social studies standards and…