The aim of this paper is to unpack the implicit ideology underpinning early childhood service delivery for families living with childhood disability. The family as the unit of care is central to the philosophy and practice of early childhood services. However, the practice of family-centred care can be problematic; it is based upon neo-liberal…

In the past few years, the online world has changed. It seems everyone is suddenly on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, and anyone who can string words together--and a few who can't--seem to have glommed onto blogs, spouting opinions into the cyberworld with abandon. Prospective students, parents, and alumni not only read…

Much of the research on students' understanding of the greenhouse effect and global warming reports poor results. Students are claimed to hold misconceptions and naive beliefs, and the impact of teaching on their conceptions is also low. In the present study, these results are called into question, and it is argued that they may to a large extent…

This paper examines an education programme devised by the New Zealand educational theatre company, "Everyday Theatre," which offers a fictional representation of family abuse. The paper raises political questions about the dramatic representation of the family as a social system, and examines how the boundaries between private feelings…

Classification can serve as a tool for conceptualising ideas about vertebrates. Training enhances classification skills as well as sharpening concepts. The method described in this paper is based on the "hybrid-model" of comparison that proposes two independently working processes: associative and theory-based. The two interact during a…

Algebra uses symbols for generalizing arithmetic. These symbols have different meanings and interpretations in different situations. Students have different perceptions about these symbols, letters and signs. Despite the vast research by on the students' difficulties in understanding letters in Algebra, the overall image that emerges from the…

In the late 1960s and 1970s, the author was falsely labeled as a student with mental retardation, a label that controlled her educational experience for 8 years. In the early 1980s, she completed traditional university licensure programs to become both a general and a special education teacher. In this article, the author provides the perspective…

Students share folk beliefs that make it difficult for them to understand inequality, especially the harmful consequences of social practices they routinely engage in, are attached to, and take for granted. Four of these beliefs include: (a) harm is direct, extreme, and the product of an individual's intentions; (2) harm is the product of the…

Active participation in university tutorials seems to be commonly argued as one of the learning difficulties of non-English-speaking background (NESB) Asian students enrolled in Western English-speaking universities. These students are often portrayed as being passive in class and this is commonly attributed to their background culture. Using…

I discuss my experience with teaching an advanced undergraduate Real Analysis class using both lecturing and the small-group guided discovery method. The article is structured as follows. The first section is about the organizational and administrative components of the class. In the second section I give examples of successes and difficulties…

Six years ago, the author shared some strategies on managing a cutback ("Budget Shortfalls," "Library Journal" 5/15/03, p. 34-35). Now, people are in an even more severe economic downturn. In this article, the author offers some additional tips on how to cope with more budget shortfalls during this recession.

The Elementary and Secondary School Survey data and Civil Rights Data Collection of the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) were analyzed to describe the issue of overrepresentation of gifted Asian American students in gifted education programs in the United States. Nationally, Asian and Whites have been overrepresented in gifted education since 1978,…

This article describes research on conceptions of preservice science teachers in their fourth year of undergraduate studies relating to: whether Earth is the center of the Universe; whether the sky is a literal vault or dome; whether Earth is flat or round; the timeline of the formation of the Universe; and the age of the Earth. The results, which…

Students often view physiological mechanisms in descriptive terms from a perspective that does not help them recognize causal relationships. The "view from the inside" is a technique that helps students focus on causal relationships from the "viewpoint" of a reporter standing inside of the system. Qualitative data indicate that the technique helps…

We invited 141 non-science major undergraduates to share and then challenge their preconceptions about evolution in a four-lesson inquiry lab unit that integrated diverse topics with rigorous assessment. Our experience suggests that an inquiring approach to evolutionary theory can be highly persuasive.