Many anatomy students begin the course with a misconception that human males and females do not have the same number of ribs. At the root of that misconception is Genesis 2:21-22, in which God removes a rib from Adam to make Eve. Removal of a body part is a surgical procedure, and one does not pass on the results of surgery to one's offspring. The…

Visualizing the three-dimensional distribution of stars within a constellation is highly challenging for both students and educators, but when carried out in an interactive collaborative way, it can create an ideal environment to explore common misconceptions about size and scale within astronomy. We present how the common tabletop activities…

The mathematical concept of function has been revisited and further developed with regularity since its introduction in ancient Babylonia (Kleiner, 1989). The difficulty of the concept of a function contributes to complications when students learn of functions and their graphs (Leinhardt, Zaslavsky, & Stein, 1990). To understand the concept of…

"Bullying 101" is the Club Crew's Guide to Bullying Prevention. A visually-friendly, age-appropriate, 16-page colorful guide for students to read or for parents to use when talking with children, this guide describes and explains what bullying is and is not, the roles of other students, and tips on what each student can do to prevent…

In this article, the author offers a discussion technique: the twice-around. A variant on the circular response discussion, the twice-around engages students by beginning with students' questions, ensuring equal time for all participants and inviting discussants to build on previous contributions. In the twice-around, participants sit in a circle,…

Distance universities excel in using digital media technologies for content delivery and collaborative interaction to compensate for limited face-to-face opportunities. Now that an ever-growing variety of media technologies, devices, and services are flooding the market, possession of expertise about the educational opportunities of these…

Sexually transmitted infections spread through skin-to-skin contact represent unique prevention challenges. This study examines how college students perceive safer sex practices with respect to human papillomavirus (HPV) and herpes. Qualitative and quantitative data (n = 275) were collected using an online questionnaire. College students'…

This paper reports on a study to determine whether blind students' conceptualizations of force and motion differ from sighted students. This is particularly concerned with the question of whether the students' visual experiences have any relation to their conceptualizations or misconceptualization about force and motion. The research was designed…

As the ethnic and racial diversity in U.S. classrooms continues to grow, myths about the education of English Language Learners (ELLs) persist, while many teachers feel ill-prepared to meet these students' academic needs. This article focuses on myths shared by in-service science teachers enrolled in a master's program at the University of Texas…

Errors indicate learners' misunderstanding and can provide learning opportunities. Providing learning support which is contingent on learners' needs when errors occur is considered effective for developing learners' understanding. The current investigation examines how tutors and tutees interact productively with errors when working on a…

Mairead Hourigan and Aisling Leavy describe a range of teaching and learning activities focusing on the identification and classification of 2-dimensional shapes. The activities described are useful in highlighting students' misconceptions regarding non-traditioanl and non-prototypical shapes.

This paper describes an interdisciplinary investigation of students' usage of ideas about energy from physics in the context of introductory chemistry. We focus on student understanding of the idea that potential energy is a function of distance between interacting objects, a concept relevant to understanding potential energy in both physical and…

This article traces the emergence of the world culture theory in comparative education using critical discourse analysis. By chronicling the emergence and expansion of world culture theory over the past four decades, we highlight the (unintended) limitations and exclusive regimes of thought that have resulted. We argue that the theory's…

Critical thinking pedagogy is misguided. Ostensibly a cure for narrowness of thought, by using the emotions appropriate to conflict, it names only one mode of relation to material among many others. Ostensibly a cure for fallacies, critical thinking tends to dishonesty in practice because it habitually leaps to premature ideas of what the object…

In this article, Bryan Goodwin delves into the reason behind addictive use of smartphones, tablets, netbooks, and e-readers, and considers whether introducing them into classrooms will help or hinder learning.