Although violence prevention programs can be helpful, they are frequently poorly targeted and unrealistic about the social forces driving student behavior. Conflict-resolution training is effective when it occurs within a cooperative context, teaches students when a conflict is or isn't occurring, stresses concrete negotiation and mediation…

Analyzes ordinary women's role in shaping school reform in their community, highlighting interplay of class conflict, regionalism, and gender roles in reform efforts. The women protesting the Odyssey Project framed the debate as a juncture between a national, elitist reform movement and a local grassroots countermovement protecting children,…

Technopoly rhetoric hypes computers in classrooms without considering costs, ultimate purposes, technology's place in the curriculum, and technology's effects on learners and learning. Developed by the military and modern corporations, computers concentrate more on efficiency, speed, power, and information than on sustained inquiry and genuine…

States that the shift in meaning of the Periodic Table to represent regularities in the electron distribution in the shells of atoms can result in confusion between elements and atoms. (DDR)

Introduces the Mass Media Mistake, an exercise in which students engage in a healthy skepticism of chemistry in the printed world, rewrite the example correctly, and discuss the consequences of the original error on the unsuspecting reader. (Contains 13 references.) (ASK)

Focuses on constructivism and lists some of the procedures that teachers use to illustrate the constructivist learning model. Describes characteristics of a classroom that is using the constructivist model. First published in 1991. (YDS)

Describes Australian secondary school, undergraduate, and postgraduate students' use of analogy and anthropomorphism along with their alternative conceptions for mental models of chemical bonding. Finds that learners make use of analogy and anthropomorphism to aid their explanations of chemical bonding, and in addition reveals that learners across…

A previous study of prospective teachers found that students from different countries and different levels of electrochemistry hold common misconceptions, indicating that concepts were presented to them poorly. Reports on how prospective teachers' scientifically incorrect ideas were used to form assertion-reason-type questions and how these…

Discusses the misconceptions revealed by the teachers' answers and outlines more accurate answers and explanations based on established evidence and uses these to provide a more complete understanding of plate tectonic process and the structure of Earth. (Author/YDS)

Discusses an attempt to promote the development of prospective elementary teachers' own subject-matter knowledge of the division of fractions as well as their awareness of nature and likely sources of related common misconceptions held by children. Indicates that before the described mathematics methods course, most participants knew how to divide…

Presents an activity in which students must arrange five fractions represented by dominoes in ascending order and justify their reasons for the ordering. Representing common fractions with dominoes helps identify students' misconceptions about fractions. (ASK)

Shows an example of bad physics by illustrating that the tidal effect is caused not only by the moon but also by the sun. Proves that differences in the gravitational tug on water at various parts of a basin is responsible for tidal mechanism. (CCM)

Examines the utility of a group normative education program designed to challenge male college students' (N=71) misperceptions of college drinking norms. Participants demonstrated more accurate perceptions of campus drinking norms and a significant reduction in consequences of alcohol use. Results suggest that normative education may be an…

Describes a study of how much children know about the human skeleton and gives advice for teaching the topic more effectively. (Author/WRM)

Discussion of visualization and animation in computer-assisted learning packages focuses on a case study of secondary students in England in an economics course. Highlights include visualization and animation as conceptual anchors; as sources of misconceptions; and the role of instructional activities. (LRW)