People frequently underestimate how long it will take them to complete a task. The prevailing view is that during the prediction process, people incorrectly use their memories of how long similar tasks have taken in the past because they take an overly optimistic outlook. A variety of evidence is reviewed in this article that points to a…

A discovery-based experiment is developed depending on a "false assumption" that the students mistakenly assume they know the structure of a reaction product and are forced to reconcile observations that are inconsistent with this assumption. This experiment involves the chemistry of azulenes, an interesting class of intensely colored aromatic…

The strabismus conception of masculinity and power with its manipulation as reflected in the consequences of actions endorsed and demonstrated by leaders, followers, citizens as individuals and groups at different times in the past, and present has been a major source of the seemingly quiescence and underdevelopment in Africa. Masculinity has…

This study is an ethnographic account of the brief career of an Argentine former engineer without pedagogical experience who was hired as a middle school Spanish teacher in a small, conservative community in the northeastern United States. The focus of the case study is on how his attempts to become a teacher on the job both affected his own…

Principals are required by policy, regulation, legislation and democratic discourse to promote equity of outcomes. This integrated review investigates research on equity issues facing five student groups: special needs students; religious, cultural and racial minorities; groups disadvantaged by socioeconomic status; gender groups; and students…

K-12 students enter physical education with many naive conceptions or misconceptions of how motor skills are acquired. One goal of physical education is to teach concepts that will help students learn and perform motor skills, but many practitioners don't know how to provide experiences that will teach students to apply their knowledge…

Students have difficulty learning fractions, and problems in understanding fractions persist into adulthood, with moderate to severe consequences for everyday and occupational decision-making. Remediation of student misconceptions is hampered by deficiencies in teachers' knowledge of the discipline and pedagogical content knowledge. We theorized…

The restructuring of secondary initial teacher education in England has seen a shift in both the focus and location of training, with an emphasis upon tightly defined competences and standards and upon more school-based work. In this paper, I discuss the impact of such changes on newly qualified teachers' (NQTs) knowledge of gender issues, through…

This paper reports on the use of a constructivist-based pedagogy to enhance understanding of some features of solution chemistry. Pre-service science teacher trainees' prior knowledge about the dissolution of salts and sugar in water were elicited by the use of a simple diagnostic tool. The test revealed widespread alternative conceptions. These…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to show that changes in social systems do not occur randomly. They are consistent with what has gone on before, with the history and identity of the system. As long as the organizing principles of a dominant culture remain unchallenged, behavior of all the social-units originating from this culture will remain…

The author's PhD training and 25 years of teaching experience did not prepare her for dealing with widespread cheating. Is it better to confront cheaters personally, or just fix the evaluation system and move on? How can the process of failing cheaters be handled in a way that is fair to all? Finally, can a potentially disastrous cheating incident…

This study examines the role of writing in learning scientific principles through analogy. Seventy-two university students observed two demonstrations concerning one of three topics: buoyant force of a fluid, projectile motion or forces internal to a system. Each composed an analogy on one of the topics through speaking-only, writing-only, or…

This article presents the author's response to "Excessive Positivism in Person-Centered Planning," by Steve Holburn and Christine D. Cea. The author begins by complementing Holburn and Cea on their courage to voice concerns that perhaps may not appear to be politically correct or perhaps too bold to express in the context of a journal like…

The value of qualitative assessment approaches has been underestimated primarily because they are often juxtaposed against long-standing quantitative traditions and the widely accepted premise that the best research produces generalizable and statistically significant findings. Institutional researchers avoid qualitative methods for at least three…

In this article we propose, theorize, demonstrate, and report early results from a course that approaches first-year composition as introduction to Writing Studies. This pedagogy explicitly recognizes the impossibility of teaching a universal academic discourse and rejects that as a goal for first-year composition. It seeks instead to improve…