Prospective teachers (N = 117) enrolled in an introductory educational psychology course completed questions measuring their perceptions of past schooling experiences, current views regarding the importance of promoting student creativity, and their perceived ability to promote creativity. Statistically significant differences were found between…

State and national standards continue to prod teacher education programs towards preparing teacher candidates who are capable of integrating computer technologies into their teaching methodologies. However, providing experiences and resources for this type of teacher training necessarily relies on students possessing basics skills in computer use…

This study investigates conditions and factors that affect preservice teachers' decisions to use handheld computers in scientific investigations and explores aspects of student learning and classroom practices that would be affected by handheld-based science activities. A Handheld-Based Laboratory (HBL) was designed to model strategies for…

From the start of the 2001-2002 academic year, people who had not completed secondary school were able to enter higher education based on documented non-formal learning, realkompetanse. Based on interviews with key personnel at selected universities and university colleges, and on quantitative data from the applicant register, this article…

A study examined how elementary school children spontaneously construct meaning when reading informational text. In particular, the study explored: what kinds of knowledge they draw on and how they use it to help them understand what they read; and how does what they do influence what they recall. Twenty-nine 6th graders from two elementary…

Based on current research in reading, this book presents an informal reading inventory designed to assess reading ability at emergent through junior high levels. It includes narrative and expository passages at each level, questions to assess prior knowledge, and word lists. It focuses assessment on specific questions regarding word…

Based on widespread teacher perceptions that British upper secondary school students entering advanced language courses are poorly prepared, an approach for making the transition to advanced language instruction is suggested. Teachers are invited to use existing syllabuses creatively to develop language awareness as well as language skills. Four…

A study analyzed the prior knowledge state of two university populations: students at the Open University (OU) of the Netherlands and students at the University of Limburg (UL). Analysis of the prior knowledge state was based on an extensive analysis of the literature in relation to theories, models, and practice-based strategies about the…

Much of the extensive diagnosis, testing, and data collection that now occur in reading clinics is time consuming and unnecessary. Private and university-based reading clinics, however, need to provide worthwhile activities that support students' literacy learning while they consider the important relationship of instruction and evaluation. After…

Previous research has cast doubt on children's ability to use specified evidence when making causal inferences, or, indeed, to differentiate between the specified evidence and their own preconceptions, or "prior theories." The present study continues previous work by distinguishing between children's reasoning in conditions where…

Various researchers have associated meaningful problem solving with methods guided directly by a conceptual knowledge base. By contast, a meaningless solving course, or sequence of operations, is essentially independent of the solver's conceptual understanding of the problem under consideration. This paper is the first to document a meaningless,…

To determine the relative importance of school and individual factors in the determination of science learning, achievement test scores were analyzed in relation to individual- and school-level factors in a national sample of about 2,000 tenth-grade students participating in the Longitudinal Study of American Youth. Hierarchical linear analyses…

This paper examines children's responses to black and white illustrations in particular silhouettes. The study had two components; the first examined fifth graders' reactions to picture books using silhouette illustrations. The second part of the research analyzed students' responses when a dramatic context was used to view and respond to selected…

In order to investigate elementary school students' understanding of historical time, this study conducted open-ended interviews with 58 children in kindergarten through sixth grade. The students were asked to place nine illustrations from various periods of American history in chronological order and to talk about the reasoning behind the order…

Designed to provide specific instructional suggestions for integrating basic reading and writing instruction in the elementary school, the lesson ideas presented in this booklet are applicable across grade levels and can be used with any basic reading and language arts textbook series. The 30 ideas cover a variety of areas, including the…