Reporting on a piece of small-scale research, this article considers the notion of a community of enquiry within the context of a Year 2 class. It suggests that the community of enquiry approach can provide a framework to support young children, comprehension in literacy and also has clear benefits in regard to young children's citizenship…

Lectures remain the primary method of instruction in higher education despite several limitations: Students typically lose interest during hour-long lectures, lectures lead to rote learning by some students, and lectures do not lead to development of higher-level conceptual thinking skills. As an alternative to a lecture on the topic, an active…

When the National Commission on Excellence in Education published "A Nation at Risk" (1983) in response to the perception that the U.S. public education system was failing to help students succeed, it gave policymakers the catalyst to introduce legislative and regulatory reforms that were designed to increase student achievement. Through such…

This article presents an overview of teaching subjects and time allocation in the German school system, with a particular focus on Berlin. An analysis of existing documents and guidelines will be combined with interviews conducted in the last part of 2002 with the Berlin school administration and with headmasters and teachers at different schools.…

The integration of information and communication technology (ICT) into school educational practice is seen as being crucial to prepare "young people to participate in and contribute to an information society that requires high levels of literacy, numeracy, technological competence and a spirit of creativity and enterprise". In National…

The purpose of this article is to identify the perceptual skills of expert teachers and offer suggestions for teachers to learn to see like an expert. Being able to perceptively read the critical cues in a learning environment allows teachers to recognize present problems, anticipate potential problems, link immediate problems with previously…

This study examines the effect of training in think alouds on literal and higher-order reading comprehension. Thirty-two (n = 32) eighth grade students of English as a foreign language (EFL) participated in the study. The participants were randomly assigned to control and experimental conditions. Descriptive statistics, correlation coefficients,…

Teaching thinking skills has been characterised by the teacher-directed "embedded", "infusion" and "bolt-on" approaches, for which outcomes have been mixed. Peer tutoring in thinking skills offers a fourth way of wide applicability. This study evaluated such a method (Paired Thinking) in a high school setting. A…

Purpose: This study examined basic numerical skills in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and how well linguistic factors explain the variance in these children's number skills. Method: The performance of children with SLI (n = 29) was compared with that of typically developing children along a continuum ranging from preschool to 3rd…

This article focuses on the difficulties afflicting the system of higher education as a result of the decline in the overall level of student training and the "gap between the level of education of secondary school graduates and historically established requirements of higher education in Russia." The author has been teaching sociology…

Students who are deaf or hard of hearing must learn to think critically. "Character education" (CE) refers to the effort to teach basic values and moral reasoning (Doyle & Ponder, 1977). "Values clarification" (VC) is the process of examining one's basic values and moral reasoning (Rokeach, 1973). Character education and values clarification as…

This article reports on the third year of a three-year longitudinal investigation into six secondary students' understanding of optics at a secondary school level. In the third year of this investigation the students, who by now were in Year 12, underwent a teaching sequence that centred on the teaching and learning of physical optics and quantum…

Classroom demonstrations are a great vehicle for getting students to apply information they have heard in a lecture. Educational research is replete with data showing that concept application in an inquiry setting reinforces long-term science content retention. This means that students learn best when they experience applications of concepts and…

Algebra is no longer just for college-bound students. After a widespread push by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and teachers across the country, algebra is now a required part of most curricula. However, students' standardized test scores are not at the level they should be. NCTM's seventieth yearbook takes a look at the…

Based on a proven instructional model distilled over years of research, this book focuses on five essential pedagogy standards for guiding teaching practice in classrooms with diverse students, including English learners. Providing key indicators for each standard along with the theoretical rationale and "best practice" strategies, the book offers…