This study examined the usefulness of applying the Rasch rating scale model (D. Andrich, 1978) to high school grade data. ACT assessment test scores (English, Mathematics, Reading, and Science) were used as "common items" to adjust for different grading standards in individual high school courses both within and across schools. This…

The "Research in Practice Series" is published four times each year by Early Childhood Australia. The series aims to provide practical, easy to read, up-to-date information and support to a growing national readership of early childhood workers. The books bring together the best information available on wide-ranging topics and are an…

This study includes the voices of elementary teachers, primarily women, in the historical narrative of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. Hopefully, this inclusion will encourage educators, and social studies educators in particular, to use personal accounts and narratives in the study of historical events. Also this study…

In many instances, actual or threatened traumatic events trigger strong reactions for those individuals experiencing them, witnessing them, or learning about a loved one or friend who experienced an unexpected trauma. In addition, those who help traumatized persons can sometimes develop secondary traumatization. This workshop presenter constructed…

Schools are among the safest places in America, however, every year school children are affected by stressful events. Whether there is war in another country or death in the schoolyard, these events can interfere with learning and may have long-term effects on children and communities. "Crisis Prevention and Intervention in the Classroom" will…

This book challenges current paradigms of literature instruction by making a strong case for teaching critical theory in high school literature classrooms. The book urges teachers to expand their theoretical repertoires. It argues for the importance of multiple perspectives in enabling students to better read and interpret literature, as well as…

In an average classroom period, a teacher has twenty or more opportunities to interact with students and thereby influence learning outcomes. As such, teachers should use these opportunities to reinforce instruction or give positive corrective feedback. Typical methods used in schools emphasize error correction at the expense of calling attention…

Research suggests that literacy practices are a key site for the construction of gender in society and that widening the range of discourses available to both boys and girls is important to expanding the possibilities for how they construct their definitions of masculinity and femininity. A study compared children's responses to picture storybooks…

It has been found repeatedly that when test takers are allowed to choose a subset of constructed response (CR) items to answer on a test, they tend to choose differently and often perform lower on more popularly chosen items. This study investigated the psychological factors that influence test takers choices. Using an experience that incorporated…

A design rationale for introducing electronic equipment (a group response system) for student interaction in lecture theaters is presented, linking the instructional design to theory. The effectiveness of the equipment for learning depends mostly on what pedagogic method is employed. Various alternative types are introduced, including: assessment;…

This book is based on the belief that deep subject knowledge of language and literature provides a foundation for effective teaching and learning. It provides a guide to the range of genres and characteristic features of English language fiction written for children, and is designed to help readers: (1) Develop their understanding of literature…

The questions addressed in this paper are: how do students interpret the non-solution problems as a mathematical practice in the classroom? What kinds of arguments do the students offer? To deal with these questions the utterances of students working in the classroom with problems in which they had to look for general relations in order to argue…

This paper reports on part of a wider study on the teaching and learning of the conventions of formal algebraic notation. Through the analysis of paper tasks given to teachers I argue that not only does the inherent mathematical structure have an effect on the way in which an equation is manipulated but also the visual impact of notation itself.…

The starting point for this study was the resistant nature of prior knowledge in conceptual change from natural numbers to rational numbers observed in our previous study. Thus, in this study the effects of deliberately teaching the abstraction of the density of numbers on the number line was tested in a quasi-experimental study at the beginning…

Responding to an increasingly urgent need for collaboration between mathematicians and mathematics educators, the study reported in this paper engages mathematicians as educational co-researchers in a series of themed Focus Group interviews where a pre-distributed sample of mathematical problems, typical written student responses, observation…