The restructuring of secondary initial teacher education in England has seen a shift in both the focus and location of training, with an emphasis upon tightly defined competences and standards and upon more school-based work. In this paper, I discuss the impact of such changes on newly qualified teachers' (NQTs) knowledge of gender issues, through…

This paper reports on the use of a constructivist-based pedagogy to enhance understanding of some features of solution chemistry. Pre-service science teacher trainees' prior knowledge about the dissolution of salts and sugar in water were elicited by the use of a simple diagnostic tool. The test revealed widespread alternative conceptions. These…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to show that changes in social systems do not occur randomly. They are consistent with what has gone on before, with the history and identity of the system. As long as the organizing principles of a dominant culture remain unchallenged, behavior of all the social-units originating from this culture will remain…

The author's PhD training and 25 years of teaching experience did not prepare her for dealing with widespread cheating. Is it better to confront cheaters personally, or just fix the evaluation system and move on? How can the process of failing cheaters be handled in a way that is fair to all? Finally, can a potentially disastrous cheating incident…

This study examines the role of writing in learning scientific principles through analogy. Seventy-two university students observed two demonstrations concerning one of three topics: buoyant force of a fluid, projectile motion or forces internal to a system. Each composed an analogy on one of the topics through speaking-only, writing-only, or…

This article presents the author's response to "Excessive Positivism in Person-Centered Planning," by Steve Holburn and Christine D. Cea. The author begins by complementing Holburn and Cea on their courage to voice concerns that perhaps may not appear to be politically correct or perhaps too bold to express in the context of a journal like…

The value of qualitative assessment approaches has been underestimated primarily because they are often juxtaposed against long-standing quantitative traditions and the widely accepted premise that the best research produces generalizable and statistically significant findings. Institutional researchers avoid qualitative methods for at least three…

In this article we propose, theorize, demonstrate, and report early results from a course that approaches first-year composition as introduction to Writing Studies. This pedagogy explicitly recognizes the impossibility of teaching a universal academic discourse and rejects that as a goal for first-year composition. It seeks instead to improve…

Dyslexia is a disorder of the language-processing systems in the brain. It is a specific learning disability in reading that often affects spelling as well. This article describes: (1) Common characteristics experienced by people with dyslexia or reading disabilities; (2) Common misconceptions about dyslexia; (3) What brain research tell us about…

Many secondary students hold misconceptions about evolution, even after instruction, that are often inconsistent with what is accepted by evolutionary biologists. Understanding evolution is difficult due to major conceptual difficulties concerning variation, differential survival, adaptation, and natural selection. In this article, the author…

Among the many issues that public school leaders and teachers often deal with is the proper role of religious belief and practice within their schools. The law regarding how the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution applies to the public school context can often seem complex and confusing, with some cases holding that a school improperly…

In this article, the author presents the findings of "The Evidence Suggests Otherwise: The Truth About Boys and Girls," a report conducted by Education Sector senior policy analyst Sara Mead. This report examines trends in achievement and education attainment and concludes that the recent surge of concern about boys' academic performance…

Two studies of 5-month-old infants explored whether a phenomenon reported by K. Wynn (1992) reflects a familiarity preference instead of a mathematical competence. Experiment 1 was a conceptual replication of Wynn's study. When data were analyzed with the relatively liberal statistical approach used by Wynn, the original phenomenon was replicated.…

In this essay, Randall Curren identifies a type of liberalism that incorporates empirical claims about the development of agency and rationality, and responds to the criticism that liberalism rests on an incoherent conception of "autonomous agency." He argues that moral agents did indeed "become ghosts" somewhere en route from Aristotle to Kant,…

Societal myths argue against active expression of sexuality in older adults, but these prejudices are unfounded. Using a deconstructionist framework, this article addresses issues surrounding sexuality in older adults. Implications for clinical practice are given.