Lectures in a large psychology course were taped and posted online where they could be viewed by streaming video. All students in the course had the option to attend lectures or watch them online, a choice that could be exercised on a lecture-by-lecture basis. The proportion of lectures watched online revealed that students chose between…

Geography as a school subject is highly infused with values and controversial issues. Much attention has been paid to the role of the (geography) teacher in dealing with values education, but the continued lack of pupil-focused empirical work hampers conceptual, practical and policy development. Drawing on evidence from pupil-focused research, it…

The so-called Culture Wars have made the issue of religious tolerance in schools more confusing than ever. Where once free speech trumped nearly every concern in these wars in the public schools, there is now great concern about whether messages put out are politically correct. The preoccupation teachers now have with avoiding speech or themes…

Roswell has long been synonymous with aliens and UFOs, and people have been arguing over what happened that night in 1947 for many years. It is a topic left out of most textbooks and neglected in many social studies classrooms. However, Roswell has found a permanent place in American culture, and teaching about Roswell can be valuable to social…

Many libraries offer for-credit courses that intend to foster information literacy. These courses will be strengthened if the librarian as instructor has a familiarity with learning theory. This article suggests that Robert Gagne's "Nine Events of Instruction," based on information processing theory, can provide support to bibliographic…

According to the California Department of Education's Curriculum Framework, the secondary curriculum for grades nine through twelve is geared toward students who are beginning "to develop [an] abstract understanding of historical causality--the often complex patterns of relationships between historical events, their multiple antecedents, and…

Efforts to include democratic ideals in public education are not new. However, current leadership efforts to foster these ideals within a PK-12 curriculum are often fruitless, partly because of a lack of common definition or perceived benefit. What exactly is meant when we suggest that educational leaders advocate teaching about democracy in our…

Critical thinking receives increasing emphasis from educators looking to infuse analytical thinking skills into the curriculum. Many research projects have been conducted on the transferability of critical thinking skills to other disciplines and how critical thinking may be taught. There are numerous studies on teaching critical thinking, yet…

We report 3 experiments using yes-no recognition tests of student memory for course content. Each test consisted of items encountered in the course and an equal number of foils. Experiment 1 involved an initial test of the methodology and addressed test reliability. Experiments 2 and 3 examined performance before and after completion of courses in…

Biochemistry and molecular biology occupy a unique place in the medical school curriculum. They are frequently studied prior to medical school and are fundamental to the teaching of biomedical sciences in undergraduate medical education. These two circumstances, and the trend toward increased integration among the disciplines, have led to…

English teaching in Colombian primary schools became a requirement because of the promulgation of the Law of Education in 1994. Taking into account that this decision produced some difficulties in the schools, a study was conducted to diagnose the state of English language teaching in primary schools in Pasto, Colombia. Data were gathered through…

This book provides an original perspective on a range of controversial issues in educational and social research through case studies of multi-disciplinary and mixed-method research involving children, teachers, schools and communities in Europe and the developing world. These case studies from researchers "across continents" and…

Nutrition-related messages inundate mass media advertisements in the United States but it is unclear as to how those messages affect a person's food selection behavior and awareness of nutrient and non-nutrient message content. This dissertation is a culmination of research examining the use of mass media (television and print) as a pedagogical…

This study explores some major challenges involved in teaching about controversial groups in U.S. public schools, discussing as an example education about Muslims since September 11, 2001 (9/11), and the need for students to develop accurate and balanced perceptions of others in a democratic society. In the first chapter, the two prominent…

In May 2006 the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) released a groundbreaking study, "What Education Schools Aren't Teaching About Reading - and "What Elementary Teachers Aren't Learning." The primary findings were disheartening: in a representative sampling of education schools in 35 states, only 15 percent of schools…