In an after-dinner talk at the fall 2005 meeting of the New England chapter of the AAPT, Professor Robert Arns drew an analogy between classical physics and Classic Coke. To generations of physics teachers and textbook writers, classical physics was the real thing. Modern physics, which in introductory textbooks "appears in one or more extra…

Two concept maps have been developed to represent the organization of the material in a first-semester general chemistry course into two overall themes: a structure and properties theme and a quantitative chemical relationships theme. By providing these maps to students and referring to them in class, it is hoped that the instructor can assist…

This paper examines the effect of content coverage on mathematics achievement and studies its relationship to eighth grade tracking. Previous analyses have shown tracking to be quite prevalent at eighth grade unlike much of the rest of the world. The U.S. practices both between- and within-school tracking, leading to very different content…

This research examined the use of wikis used in support of collaboration and learning in two post-secondary courses in a large Mid-Western university that adopted wikis in pedagogically different ways. In the first course, students used their wiki as a course content glossary for posting and editing original contributions. They perceived the wiki…

In her 1993 text "Educating For Intelligent Belief and Unbelief," Nel Noddings advocated an ambitious plan to challenge the students; she wished to engage them in a dialogue on the religious issues that define those questions, which "matter deeply to everyone." This was seen as a dialogue that can take place at all levels of education, but was…

This essay explores the nature of the curriculum content of liberal studies--a core school subject in the new senior secondary curriculum in Hong Kong--with reference to the curriculum-making processes entailed in the formation of that subject. The central thesis is that a school subject is introduced to schools and classrooms as a distinct…

According to the National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project, one of the ultimate goals of studying a foreign language is to better understand different cultures. To this end, we implemented a project in an undergraduate foreign language course that promoted a systematic inquiry-based approach to learning about the Hispanic culture.…

This article presents results from a qualitative study on how the Honduran secondary education programme, "Sistema de Aprendizaje Tutorial" (SAT), attempts to "undo gender" (Deutsch 2007: 122) by encouraging students to rethink gender relations in their everyday lives in a way that reflects their increased consciousness of…

Laboratory-based courses play a significant role in engineering education. Given the role of electronics in engineering and technology, laboratory experiments and circuit simulation IT tools are used in their teaching in several academic institutions. This paper discusses the characteristics and benefits of both methods. The content and structure…

Significant involvement of students in the development and implementation of college alcohol prevention strategies is largely untested, despite recommendations by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and others. Objective: The purpose of the Pragmatics Project was to test a student engagement model for developing and implementing…

In this article, students' perceptions of the benefits and the challenges of creating a wiki for a language arts methods class are explored through their online reflections and interview transcripts. The students' own words describe their experiences about learning course content while collaborating to create a course wiki. Reflecting on the…

Students learn more effectively with personally meaningful tasks. Thus, students learn more if they have a say in deciding what specific topics and examples are being discussed in class. Naturally, the instructor knows what topics are important to cover in a course and which ones might be optional. Finding the right balance between students'…

This article is a summary of comprehensive units on gender and sexuality diversity that the authors have used in teacher education courses in undergraduate and graduate social foundations of education classes over several years. The course lesson plan includes a five-part analysis of the following categories: biological sex; gender identity/sexual…

The authors designed an active learning project for a child development course in which students apply core concepts to a hypothetical baby they "raise" during the term. Students applied developmental topics to their unique, developing child. The project fostered student learning and enthusiasm for the material. The project's versatility makes it…

This paper explores Stanley Cavell's notion of "passionate utterance", which acts as an extension of/departure from (we might read it as both) J. L. Austin's theory of the performative. Cavell argues that Austin having made the revolutionary discovery that truth claims in language are bound up with how words perform, then gets bogged by convention…