In recent years, scholars and other educators have encouraged language arts teachers to include LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) issues and texts in their classrooms. Despite these efforts, scholars have pointed out that LGBT perspectives are seldom included in language arts pedagogy. Studies of teacher attitudes toward addressing LGBT…

When General Certificates of Secondary Education (GCSEs) were introduced in the late 1980s, coursework was included as a requirement in many subjects. Coursework was intended to help best represent students' attainments, but concerns about various issues (e.g., tasks becoming formulaic, authenticity of student work, workload) led to a review and…

Much criticism exists concerning a lack of focus on real-world problem-solving in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) infrastructures. Many of these critics say that current educational infrastructures are incapable in preparing future scientists and engineers to solve the complex and multidisciplinary problems this society…

In recent decades, many institutions of higher education have responded to community and student learning needs through the development of service-learning programs (Sapp & Crabtree, 2002). Community colleges have been noted as leaders in the establishment of service-learning programs. The purpose of this study was to better understand the…

Even 150 years after Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species," public school teachers still find themselves dealing with student resistance to learning about biological evolution. Some teachers deal with this pressure by undermining, deemphasizing, or even omitting the topic in their science curriculum. Others face the…

Kentucky school districts have been charged to present an academic program review that documents the use of dance across curriculum content at all grade levels. This program review will replace statewide standardized tests for all students in the state of Kentucky and will count 20% toward each school's accountability score. Schools within the…

In a North Texas school district, students taking online courses in a variety of subject areas were not successfully completing courses at the district's expected levels. The district pays for courses and student support while remaining financially responsible to the community and programmatically to students' online success. Students'…

This volume is a collection of selected refereed papers presented at the Association of Teachers of Japanese Annual Spring Conference held at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa in March of 2011. It not only covers several important topics on teaching and learning spoken and written Japanese and culture in and beyond classroom settings, but also…

Building on Ball's (2009) model of generative change, we explored how two experienced literacy teachers, after completing a graduate-level multicultural literacy course, enacted the tenets of critical literacy. Ball defined teachers' generative thinking as "connecting their personal and professional knowledge with the knowledge that they gain from…

The typical undergraduate student of today is accustomed to receiving information on a daily basis in a variety of formats, i.e. multimedia channels. This can present a challenge to educators wishing to engage students in the classroom while still providing required content in order to enhance learning outcomes. Although technological tools…

Theories and research related to the unconscious can be found in every area of psychology, but there is no course devoted to the topic in the undergraduate curriculum. A capstone course on the unconscious is described. The course integrates topics across the major fields of psychology. Themes in the course include the existence of mental processes…

A professional outlet in most children's hospitals for seriously-ill children is the child life specialist. Our objective in this study was to determine the extent that dying and death is emphasized in child life programs in the United States. Therefore, we surveyed via snail mail the 35 child life programs on the website of the Child Life…

The teaching of history has attracted more controversy and media attention than any other subject in the ongoing reform of the curriculum in Scottish primary and secondary schools, "A curriculum for excellence." This gives head teachers increased powers to decide on the curriculum as long as it satisfies four general capacities rather…

This study evaluates the impact of teaching basic qualitative methodology to preservice teachers enrolled in an educational psychology course in the quality of observation journals. Preservice teachers enrolled in an educational psychology course requiring 45 hr of field experience were given qualitative methodological training as a part of the…

Based on the demonstrated value of peer reviews in the engineering industry, numerous industry experts have listed it at the top of the list of desirable development practices. Experience has shown that problems (defects) are eliminated earlier if a development process incorporates peer reviews and that these reviews are as effective as or even…