This article focuses on the impact of schooling on teachers through an exploration of the teaching of Science and English to Year 10 pupils in a metropolitan area in the north of England. Data was collected from 15 case studies through semi-structured interviews with the teacher, a lesson observation, and a post-observation interview with a sample…

A study involving upper elementary school students (n=30) was conducted to examine conceptual change and constructivism. It is argued that a constructivist view of learning is antithetical to a vision of conceptual change in which teachers act in a diagnostic and remediate manner to help students rid themselves of their inaccurate ideas. It…

This paper describes research conducted in a classroom devoted to conceptual change instruction. The teacher in this class of fifth grade students at a midwestern parochial school made explicit attempts to have her students comment on the conceptions they held, their justification for those conceptions, and the status they attached to their…

In the domain of research on physics education, results on students' conceptions show difficulties in physics learning. This paper aims to propose theoretical elements to interpret such learning difficulties related to physics teaching in the case of heat and temperature. Sections in this paper include: (1) Introduction; (2) Epistemological…

The degree to which college students agree with common myths about rape was investigated, using the Attitude Toward Rape Questionnaire. The effect of gender and years in college on student attitudes was also assessed. The sample consisted of 500 randomly-selected students from a state-assisted, four-year residential university in Ohio. The…

Fourteen myths about recovered mental patients are discussed in this pamphlet. The myths are introduced in a true/false checklist. Famous recovered victims of mental illness are cited, most notably Abraham Lincoln. Three vignettes concerning non-famous people and the rebuffs they faced as they attempted to become self-sufficient are presented.…

This second of a two-part article on leadership development offers some practical advice on the applications of leadership concepts to the principalship. Provides examples of common leadership myths and selection of an appropriate leadership style. (CJH)

The main purpose of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of conceptual change text (CCT) oriented instruction over traditionally designed instruction on students' understanding of electrochemical (galvanic and electrolytic) cell concepts. The subjects of the study consisted of 64 students from the two classes of a high school in Turkey.…

This study observed and documented the changes of college students' notion of mathematics functions in a virtual environment that integrated a synchronous and asynchronous Computer Mediated Communication system. Four Arizona State University undergraduates were teamed into pairs and solved function problems in the virtual classroom over a one…

In no other country in the world do so many boys and girls receive regular high-school education of a general cultural type as in the United States, and the number of such boys and girls in this country is rapidly increasing, having more than doubled since 1905, and increased more than 60 per cent since 1910. American democratic ideals demand not…

The term "rubric" refers to a scoring guide used to evaluate the quality of students' constructed responses (written compositions, oral presentations, or science projects). Although educators rave about rubrics, the vast majority are instructionally fraudulent. Problems arise when rubrics are too task-specific or general or lengthy and…

Elementary school children were interviewed about how gears move on a gearboard and how they work in commonplace machines. Children's reasoning became more general, formal, and mathematical as problem complexity increased, suggesting that mathematical forms of reason may develop when they provide a clear advantage over simple causal…

Presents a method for teaching aspects of mechanics using juggling. This approach requires an understanding of the three ball juggling pattern. Recommends teacher-guided deconstruction of the ball motion and discusses acceleration, force, gravity, impulse, and momentum. (DDR)

Discusses how students fail to recognize the underlying equivalence when the same set of points is represented by a graph or an equation or a table. Presents activities in which more than one form of representations of the same information are included. (ASK)

Excoriates an article by Ralph Parish and Frank Aquila in the same "Kappan" issue, particularly the authors' faulty comparisons of 1980s reforms with failed 1970s experiments, their misrepresentation of the "social reproduction" framework, and their smug superiority regarding necessity for change. Some educators may have good reasons for opposing…