Describes the activities of the Physics Teachers Action Research Group in which college physics teachers work together in planning, revising, and evaluating student projects that foster greater conceptual understanding and address student misconceptions. Presents the details of a project in which students were asked to build an accelerometer. (JRH)

A parent of two young children who received cochlear implant surgery addresses common myths about this procedure including "deaf people don't support the use of cochlear implants,""if you choose cochlear implant surgery, you are choosing the hearing world,""hearing parents are not qualified to decide," and "the deaf child him/herself should…

Education can benefit from knowledge derived from cognitive and developmental psychology. Family demographics have actually improved between 1970 and 90 and so have NAEP scores. Three innovative programs demonstrating cognitive science applications include the Teaching Number Sense elementary math program, reciprocal teaching (reading strategy),…

Strips away advertising hyperbole to explain multimedia CD-ROM technology and its place in today's classrooms. Only the newest computers are adequate for multimedia CD-ROM; only 10% of all computers in schools have CD-ROM drives attached. CD-ROM drives' performance varies, installation hassles abound, and the "edutainment" market directs…

Devolution is rapidly becoming a tangled web of misunderstandings, distortions, and lies. It is time to unravel some of the complex issues, undisclosed interests, and manipulation masquerading under the devolution rubric. Most current redefinitions of schooling are probusiness and serve "big-town" interests. Schools should not reorganize…

Survey results reveal trainee primary teachers are well informed about the nature and location of the ozone layer and appreciated that it screens the earth from ultraviolet (UV) rays, although some thought that it protects the earth from acid rain. Identifies themes in students' thinking and groups of students with different concepts. (LZ)

Provides two experiments that do not give the expected results. One involves burning a candle in an air-filled beaker under water and the other burns the candle in pure oxygen. Provides methodology, suggestions, and theory. (MVL)

Reviews the research on cocaine use and its effect on newborns; examines the popular misconceptions, including the background of children who are exposed; and discusses interventions. The author concludes with a discussion about looking beyond prenatal drug exposure and focusing on the child. Studies looking at these children longitudinally are…

Explores the extent to which presentations about multiplication and division involving decimals within three series of mathematics textbooks for grades three through eight help students to counter common learner misconceptions about multiplication and division. Results indicate that theory on conceptual change with its concomitant research have…

Questionnaire results indicate that, although first-year, undergraduate science students (n=109) recognize the correct sources of energy for organisms, they simultaneously hold misconceptions about other essential, but nonenergy-supplying, conditions as sources of energy supply. Occurrence rates for these misconceptions vary with the students'…

Interview data exemplify students' attempts to integrate the concepts of electrochemistry with related knowledge that they had previously constructed or acquired in other classes. The implications for minimizing potential misconceptions center on the difficulties students experience when using more than one model for explaining scientific…

The testing of a formal causal model of thinking about motion is described using a matching-pairs paper-and-pencil task. Subjects were asked to distinguish between examples of stereotypical motions by the similarity or difference of causes of pairs of motions. The results suggest that responses can be predicted by the model with the addition of an…

Describes two simple sets of demonstrations regarding Arrhenius Theory of acids and bases to help students to understand the nature of theories and why they often must be changed. (ZWH)

The bitter debate over the literary and historical canon has overshadowed the progress made in multicultural education during the last two decades. Detractors mistakenly believe that multicultural education is for victimized minorities and women, opposes the Western tradition, and will divide the nation. Teachers must integrate five knowledge…

Japanese students are tracked, not into different programs within a school, but into entirely different high schools--academic, vocational, and commercial--that educate them poorly. Virtually 100% of public school graduates would fail college entrance exams without the "juku," or cram school. Reforms are not imminent, since the current…