Textbooks and websites today abound with real data. One neglected issue is that statistical investigations often require a good deal of "cleaning" to ready data for analysis. The purpose of this dataset and exercise is to teach students to use exploratory tools to identify erroneous observations. This article discusses the merits of such…

This note, which is based on a final year project for a BSC degree, presents an investigation on the Olympic decathlon. It shows that the existing non-linear transformation which is used to assign points to athletes' performance gives practically identical results to that of a simpler linear one. In addition, the paper presents evidence to support…

While classroom instruction can and should still be used to teach students the fundamentals of engineering, the key to their ultimate success is learning to use that knowledge in a real-world setting. Out-of-class activities, like the American Society of Civil Engineers' (ASCE) National Concrete Canoe Competition, not only give students a hands-on…

The background of the work presented in this article is that for quite some time project work has been a method of working that is more theoretically described than it is put into practice. The aim of this text is to show how a teacher can function as a facilitator or a guide for the students within project-directed teaching and how this setting…

Middle school teachers are accountable for helping young adolescents master a daunting number of basic skills and concepts. On the other hand, they are also expected to help their students develop a social conscience during what is arguably the most egocentric stage of their social development. This article presents a service learning project that…

The topics and concepts in this biochemical engineering course are presented in the context of the path from drug discovery to manufacturing. The basics for working in the area of cell culture process development are covered in an interesting, relevant, and connected way. This paper presents activities for engaging students in learning the…

The general aim of this research is to determine the teachers' opinions on students' higher order thinking skills according to primary school stages, and developed, underdeveloped, suburb and rural regions where the schools are located. The issues related to students' higher order thinking skills covered in this research are as follows: project…

Recent educational research from a socio-cognitive perspective has validated students' collaborative engagement with new technologies and heightened understanding of influential factors shaping the effectiveness of peer interactions, learning contexts and computer interfaces for enhancing learning. This paper focuses on an analysis of the…

The MicroObservatory network of five online telescopes has been used by middle and high school students, their teachers, and the public in all 50 states to carry out a wide variety of inquiry-driven projects. From an analysis of 475 student projects and other data, we report substantial gains in students' conceptual understanding of what…

Citizenship education (CE) is a recent innovation within the National Curriculum in England, key aspects of which have a clear relevance to the "Every Child Matters" (ECM) agenda. Both CE and ECM strongly articulate a commitment to democratic principles and express a concern over children's perspectives being taken into account in order…

Erick Gordon, founding director of the Student Press Initiative, illustrates collaborations with teachers and students that have motivated students to invest themselves in the process and product of writing, including research, oral history, revision, and an immersion in and commitment to community.

In this qualitative teacher-researcher one-year classroom study, the author focused upon the literacy strategies that four low-achieving writers used while creating and interpreting music video compositions. The students read a variety of musical and video texts as they composed their own music video project. The guiding question of this research…

Professional development school (PDS) contexts are increasingly being viewed as powerful sites for the preparation of future teachers in the USA. One of their documented strengths is in the fostering of preservice teachers' inquiry within collaborative frameworks that result from the partnerships between university teacher education programmes and…

A collaborating scientist--a rewarding addition to any high school science program--can help students collect and analyze data that either replicates or parallels the work of the partnering scientist. This type of partnership is beneficial for both students and scientists, and perhaps there has never been a better time to consider such a…

This paper represents a conversation between a high school science teacher and a university researcher as they found common ground in the theory and experiences of designing powerful learning experiences. The teacher describes an instructional unit in which students designed a complex, interactive display showing what life may have been like…