The author discusses changes that the Texas Division for Blind Services made in its vocational rehabilitation program to increase competitive employment opportunities for vocational rehabilitation consumers who are blind and visually impaired. P. R. Warren, B. S. Cavenaugh, and M. J. Giesen (2004) reported that, nationwide, a higher proportion of…

This article describes an activity in measurement and geometry in which sixth-grade students explore the volume and surface area of a donut. Through calculation, creative thinking, and discovery, the students enhanced their geometric vocabulary and reasoning. (Contains 9 figures.)

Discovery learning in mathematics in the domain of probability based on hands-on experiments is normally limited because of the difficulty in providing sufficient materials and data volume in terms of repetitions of the experiments. Our cooperative, computational modelling and simulation environment engages students and teachers in composing and…

Evidence for the superiority of guided instruction is explained in the context of our knowledge of human cognitive architecture, expert-novice differences, and cognitive load. Although unguided or minimally guided instructional approaches are very popular and intuitively appealing, the point is made that these approaches ignore both the structures…

A review of the literature yields many intriguing applications of interactive multimedia technology that can be seen through a series of "snapshots" describing current projects and initiatives for deaf education. The five main categories chosen to represent these activities are: instructional design, communication bridges, skill development…

Mission statements are ubiquitous in higher education. Accreditation agencies demand them, strategic planning is predicated on their formulation, and virtually every college and university has one available for review. Moreover, higher education institutions are constantly revisiting and revising their mission statements: as recently as the…

Australia is now the third largest provider of education to overseas students. Between 1994 and 2000 the number of overseas students taught by Australian universities increased by 150% to 107,622. It is estimated that 41% of the recent growth in international education has been in offshore enrolments, with each of Australia's 38 universities now…

This article explores the factors influencing student choice at six contrasting universities in Scotland to establish if there is value in developing a model for predicting institutional choice for Scottish undergraduate entry. It is based on a survey of 651 students in two undergraduate disciplines, accountancy and engineering, across the six…

Alecia Ford, co-author of this article, had a problem that teachers everywhere face more and more frequently with the predominance of standardized testing--too much world history to teach in too little time. Her problem relates to how she can help her sixth-grade students develop an in-depth understanding of the Enlightenment, a period in history…

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…

Describes activities for the elementary school classroom to increase observational accuracy of children. (CP)

An activity-based unit on congruence and similarity is described. The themes underlying the unit are the usefulness of analogy in determining mathematical principles, and the notion that the number of conditions imposed on figures affects the number of factors which must be specified to insure congruence or similarity. (SD)