Educational administration programs are unlikely to change, given the rigidity and dysfunctional nature of university culture. Faculty resistance rejects competing ideologies. In one alternative model based on the teacher-learner relationship, leadership is discovered rather than taught, constituting a journey for instructor and student. (26…

Presents a theoretical framework for analyzing educational media, discusses the role of narrative in comprehension, and describes MENO (Multimedia, Education and Narrative Organization), a project investigating how students engage in exploratory learning, and the design of multimedia material for a course on Homer. Argues that narrative structure…

A study involving 75 elementary students, 51 with high-incidence disabilities, investigated variables associated with learning in an inquiry-oriented approach to the study of density and buoyancy. Preconceptions, scientific predictions, and academic achievement measures were not predictive of task performance. However, grade level and IQ were…

Originally marketed as a personal organizer for mobile business executives and ardent technophiles, the handheld computer is beginning to catch educators' notice. A handful of school districts are piloting large-scale use of these portable devices, ranging in price from $149 to $450. (MLH)

Discusses middle school teachers' responses to the challenge that a responsive curriculum cannot be rigorous. Notes teaching and educational reform strategies demonstrating the academic value of integrated curriculum. (JPB)

Investigated intervention effects on mental models of multivariable causality in middle school students involved in inquiry learning. Found that inquiry learning promoted a correct mental model based on additive effects of individual features and a meta-strategic understanding of the need to control influences of other features. Also found…

Presents an argument for inquiry-based activities and defines science as talking to the material world. Discusses the notion that a hands-on activity is an inquiry-based activity only if a dialog with the material world takes place. (DDR)

Examines relations between the features of discovery simulations, the learning processes elicited, the knowledge that results, and the methods used to measure the acquired knowledge. Discusses intuitive knowledge and describes a study of post-secondary students that investigated the instructional effectiveness of discovery simulations in physics.…

This paper advances the hypothesis that young children use narrative play and stories to construct two types of fiction, the worlds of "what is" and "what if." Heinz Werner's conceptualization of children's spheres of reality, in which actions, symbols, and events are constructed in particular ways, is used as a theoretical framework for…

In describing the professional development journey of science teachers, the National Science Standards (NRC 1996) provides a useful cartography. Inquiry, those standards suggest, is the central strategy for the teaching of science. By illustrating the parallels between inquiry as a form of scientific investigation and inquiry as a classroom…

In 1992, I published a paper entitled "Hypermedia and discovery based learning: A historical perspective". It traced the swings in the history of educational thinking between, on the one hand, support for conventional curriculum based learning and, on the other, the non-linear approach expressed by many educational commentators over the centuries.…

This resource book contains 18 magic number tricks that spark the interest and imagination of students as they are led through a variety of mathematical computations and discoveries. Following each activity, students are asked to write about their discoveries and create their own magic tricks. A matrix of skills for all the activities and lists of…

This book reiterates the fundamental purpose of Maria Montessori's philosophy of bringing about a "better world by nurturing the spirit of the child." The book draws upon published authorities on the importance of the nurturing of the spirit, along with experiences of active Montessorians for everyday examples of nurturing spirituality…

This paper provides information on teaching science to students with special needs. The focus is placed on students with learning disabilities who may behave inappropriately due to frustration about their academic deficits. This perception is often brought about by a predominant mode of instruction in schools which is text-driven,…

This study seeks to establish which scientific reasoning skills are primarily domain-general and which appear to be domain-specific. The subjects, 12 university undergraduates, each participated in self-directed experimentation with three different content domains. The experimentation contexts were computer-based laboratories in d.c. circuits…