In the past, correct spelling, the multiplication tables, the names of the state capitals and the American presidents were basics that all children were taught in school. Today, many children graduate without this essential knowledge. Most curricula today follow a haphazard sampling of topics with a focus on political correctness instead of…

The purpose of the research is to establish an understanding of relationships with students in public schools and the community. The research was done with looking at the geographic location of students in an urban school district, resources available and the amount of funding. The results concluded that schools, communities and parents have a…

Questionnaire data from the PIRLS 2006 study in Italy provided a number of indices in order to summarize factors of educational context influencing reading achievement. The aim of the present paper is to study the relationships between school factors, teacher factors, family factors, student factors and reading achievement by means of multilevel…

Calling students in high school now and in coming years "the people who will envision the future of our nation and chart our course through the 21st century and beyond," the Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY) has called in a new report for improvements in adolescent literacy if students are to succeed in college and careers. The report, "Time…

Novice special education teachers struggle with many of the same pedagogical challenges as their general education counterparts. They often need help learning the curriculum, acquiring and adapting necessary materials, and addressing challenging student behavior. A complicating factor is that novice special education teachers typically have…

Based on current research and conventional wisdom, financial education should begin at an early age. With the exception of a few generally underutilized in-school banking programs, Maryland's Lower Eastern Shore, like so many other areas across the nation, has few or no school-based financial literacy programs. A partnership with 23 public,…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to highlight factors that facilitate or hinder the entry and academic achievement of students from low socioeconomic status into higher education, and facilitate understanding about how such students can be supported in their learning at university. Design/methodology/approach: The authors draw on the…

Based on a specially adapted questionnaire, research was carried out to explore how resources in modern distance learning were being applied in rural elementary and middle schools in Western China, in order to enhance the usefulness of the allocated resources. One particular distance learning project was used as the subject of the study, and…

The use of swarm intelligence techniques in e-learning scenarios provides a way to combine simple interactions of individual students to solve a more complex problem. After getting some data from the interactions of the first students with a central system, the use of these techniques converges to a solution that the rest of the students can…

This study describes the resources and strategies middle school teachers, urban fellows, and a district science staff developer coactivated to resist the marginalization of science in a high-poverty, low-performing urban school. Through critical narrative inquiry, I document factors that marginalized science in three teachers' classrooms. The…

Several definitions of service learning exist. For this initiative, the authors used Torres and Sinton's (2000) definition that students are learning about social issues and applying new knowledge to real problems in their communities. This project entailed a partnership of committed citizens of different groups (middle, secondary, and university…

An early 15th century drawing by Leonardo da Vinci depicted a device that used gears and a pendulum that moved in synchronization with the wearer as he or she walked. This is believed to be the early origins of today's physical activity monitoring devices. Today's devices have vastly expanded on da Vinci's ancient concept with a myriad of options…

Computers in education have come a long way from the abacus of 5,000 years ago to the desktop and laptop computers of today. Computers have transformed the educational environment, and with each new iteration of smaller and more powerful machines come additional advantages for teaching practices. The Tablet PC is one. Tablet PCs are fully…

In the present article, I report on my experience in teaching and learning physiology in the first year of a new modular curriculum at the Faculty of Medicine of the National University of Rwanda. With self-reported questionnaires, I collected learning experience perceptions from 112 students who attended the module of physiology in 2008. The…

Some have proposed that realistic problem situations are better for learning. This issue contains two articles that examine the effects of "making it real" in computer architecture and human-computer interaction.