Provides seven fully developed library media activities that are designed to be used with specific curriculum units in mathematics, reading/language arts, science, and social studies. Library media skills objectives, curriculum objectives, grade levels, instructional roles, activity and procedures for completion, evaluation, and follow-up are…

Describes a project in which students in a community college basic mathematics class worked collaboratively to write their own book on fractions. Students reinforced their math and cooperative skills, gained confidence, organized and revised their ideas, and created their own examples. Relates teacher and student responses to the project. (DMM)

The game "Pythagoras" is an adaptation of the tangram puzzle. Describes the process of finding all the possible convex polygons with seven sides to prove that the solution to a given puzzle shape of seven sides difficult to find was not possible. (MDH)

Insights from both cognitive psychology and learning disabilities intervention research are presented to improve understanding of the processes by which number fact fluency develops. Discussion includes assessment guidelines and learning strategies such as counting all, counting on, and alternative groupings. (Author/JDD)

The relative impact of structured peer learning and group reward components of a reciprocal peer tutoring intervention on mathematics performance of 64 academically at-risk students in grades 4 and 5 was examined. Results indicate additive and distinctive effects of both components, with the highest gain for the component combination. (SLD)

New developments in the use of automatically scorable constructed response item types for large-scale assessment are reviewed for five domains: (1) mathematical reasoning; (2) algebra problem solving; (3) computer science; (4) architecture; and (5) natural language. Ways in which these technologies are likely to shape testing are considered. (SLD)

The Technology Institute is a school/university partnership between Dartmouth College (New Hampshire) and five urban school districts that provides inservice secondary teacher development opportunities which link computer learning to science and math instruction. Over an eight-year period, the program has evolved from a traditional…

A study based on national data found that the average duration of doctoral study was related to departmental emphases on scholarly careers and the resources to implement those emphases. Patterns varied by general discipline area and by specific discipline, suggesting a need for detailed analysis by discipline. (Author/MSE)

Develops the idea of fractals through a laboratory activity that calculates the fractal dimension of ordinary white bread. Extends use of the fractal dimension to compare other complex structures as other breads and sponges. (MDH)

Procedures for obtaining student samples for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and deriving survey weights for analysis of survey data are described. Sample designs are economically and operationally feasible, and weighting procedures result in increased precision of estimates as they account for the probabilities of student…

Studies female engineers' characteristics, how they were socialized into engineering, and coping mechanisms for a male-dominated work world. Interviews with 29 women and 3 men suggest that women choose engineering because of the challenge, interest, and parental influence. Many female engineers experience gender discrimination and problems with…

Provides on-task activities to fill in unexpected extra moments in elementary classes. The activities require little preparation and take 5-15 minutes to complete. There are activities for math, language arts, social science, science, critical thinking, and computer. An outer space board game is also included. (SM)

Ability grouping persists because few practical, financially feasible, and politically palatable alternatives have been explored. Built to accommodate a team of 6 teachers and 135 to 150 students, 1 Virginia middle school's parallel block scheduling plan exchanges tracking for a practical method of working with heterogeneous groups of students.…

This study described ways that sixth grade students invented strategies for working out difficult physics problems while using a motion program in the computer environment "Boxer." Strategies became a communal classroom resource and ground rules for their use were negotiated with the teacher. (MDH)

Monte Carlo techniques are used to examine the power of the "B" statistic of R. L. Brennan (1972) to detect negatively discriminating items drawn from a variety of nonnormal population distributions. A simplified procedure is offered for conducting an item-discrimination analysis on typical classroom objective tests. (SLD)