In recent years, there has been an alarming rise in psychological disorders diagnosed in children in the United States. As a result, the number of children in school with Individualized Education Plans (IEP) continues to grow in order to meet these children's special needs in the classroom. Despite the rise in psychological disorders, many…

New scientific research shows that environmental influences can actually affect whether and how genes are expressed. Thus, the old ideas that genes are "set in stone" or that they alone determine development have been disproven. In fact, scientists have discovered that early experiences can determine how genes are turned on and off and even…

This Toolkit forms part of the project entitled "Time for a New Paradigm in Education: Student-Centred Learning" (T4SCL), jointly led by the European Students' Union (ESU) and Education International (EI). This is an EU-funded project under the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP) administered by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture…

Native American students in Washington attend more than 40 postsecondary institutions and participate in college at a rate greater than their proportional presence in the population. They are just as likely to apply for and receive financial aid as other groups, a little less likely to borrow to attend college, and experience a greater gap than…

This article honours Adele Miccio's life work by reflecting on the utility of phonetic transcription. The first section reviews the literature on cases where children whose speech appears to neutralize a contrast in the adult language are found on closer examination to produce a contrast ("covert contrast"). This study presents evidence…

Background/Context: The United States is currently undergoing a period of unprecedented immigration, with the majority of new arrivals coming from Asia and Latin America, not Europe. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (APIs) represent the fastest growing racial group in the United States, and schools are again being asked to socialize newcomer…

Teachers' views and expectations of students directly impact student learning, and unless they are challenged during the preparation period, these views are unlikely to change. This study investigated how a group of prospective teachers explained the shift in their perspectives of low-income, urban youth as a result of participating in a…

This paper describes a model for computer programming outreach workshops aimed at second-level students (ages 15-16). Participants engage in a series of programming activities based on the Scratch visual programming language, and a very strong group-based pedagogy is followed. Participants are not required to have any prior programming experience.…

Since 1995 I have been engaged in consultancies and since 2001 in research dealing with the language of instruction policies in Africa. To what extent are the policies being implemented? What is the role of research and consultancy when it comes to language policy? What happens when researchers or consultants come up with recommendations which do…

Less than a decade ago, Howe et al. (1998) attempted to demonstrate the lack of scientific support for the concept of innate talent (IT). Most ([approximately equal to] 75%) of the 30 commentators to that target article clearly disagreed with their core position. In spite of Ericsson's current efforts to counter or circumvent the major objections…

The process of submitting documentation to testing agencies as proof of a disability can be time consuming, expensive, and even intimidating to test takers with learning disabilities. Misconceptions about the accommodations review process employed by testing agencies add to the anxiety that many test takers feel around obtaining approval for…

Students bring prior knowledge to their learning experiences. This prior knowledge is known to affect how students encode and later retrieve new information learned. Teachers and content developers can use information about students' prior knowledge to create more effective lessons and materials. In many content areas, particularly the sciences,…

This article presents the authors' response to Pignotti and Mercer's "Holding Therapy and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy Are Not Supported and Acceptable Social Work Interventions." Pignotti and Mercer offer a very detailed, informative, scholarly, and eloquently expressed concern about the merit of holding therapies and the danger of offering…

Integral theory is a way of knowing that helps foster the recognition that disparate aspects of reality--such as biological constitution, cultural worldviews, felt-sense of selfhood, and social systems--are all critically important to any knowledge quest. Integral theory provides an "all quadrants, all levels" (K. Wilber, 2006, p. 26)…

Students were asked to answer a multiple-choice, particulate-level question on gas properties and also explain their understanding on gas particles at the microscopic levels when the gas sample was cooled. The question was considered to be troublesome by some students as the question did not depict the critical attribute to change and some…