As part of a study on planning in early grades social studies, teachers' unit plans were examined for evidence that reading and discussing a research report about what young children knew about the production, distribution, and consumption of food influenced their choices of curricular goals and instructional practices. Unit plans were…

Senior secondary mathematics students could justifiably question the relevance of subject matter they are being required to understand. One response to this is to place the learning experience within a context that clearly demonstrates a non-trivial application of the material, and which thereby provides a definite purpose for the mathematical…

Teaching and learning science through the use of familiar contexts has been advocated for several decades. Many take the use of context in science lessons to mean the use of resource materials that involve common scenarios or themes, or activities. This paper reviews a lesson identified by a teacher as a lesson taught in context. The data…

The author has been teaching Introduction to Sociology for several years, and each semester new students bring their own perspectives to the study of sociology, making the content fresh and new. In order to help students understand sociological concepts in more experiential ways and to give them a glimpse into a culture that may be different from…

Key Stage 2/3 trainees undertake their second school placement in secondary schools having completed a placement in a primary school in the first year of their training. While trainees will have been prepared at their higher education institution, the experience itself can be daunting for reasons other than the fact that this is their first…

Research undertaken in England during 1999 identified that ethnic minority groups have diverse career needs, and while this is generally recognised few initiatives had been instigated to address them. If the career education needs of Muslim girls are to be effectively met, a shift away from a predominantly ethnocentric provision, based on western…

This study reports on student experiences in an inquiry-oriented elementary science methods course. Students in this course designed and conducted an independent investigation, and then adapted that investigation to develop an inquiry-oriented lesson and a corresponding performance assessment. Students' written reflections expressed increased…

Students who are deaf or hard of hearing must learn to think critically. "Character education" (CE) refers to the effort to teach basic values and moral reasoning (Doyle & Ponder, 1977). "Values clarification" (VC) is the process of examining one's basic values and moral reasoning (Rokeach, 1973). Character education and values clarification as…

A well-designed professional development (PD) program serves to deepen and extend teachers' subject matter knowledge and extend and refine their teaching practices. However, professional development programs often fail to achieve sustained change in teacher practices and improvement in student learning. In this study the authors attempt to find…

Teachers may be the most important element of an effective school, but does that mean that K-12 improvement must wait on the ability of schools or systems to recruit, nurture, and retain outstanding teachers? Such a strategy implies that widespread excellence hinges on the ability of publicly funded school systems to attract more than 3.3 million…

This practical, how-to guide makes it easy for teachers to incorporate the latest technology in their classes. Employing an informal workshop approach, the book avoids technical jargon and pays special attention to the needs of teachers who are expanding the use of computers in their classroom. The authors focus on what teachers do and how they…

This case provides a real-world semester long project-oriented case study for students enrolled in an electronic commerce course that has a significant development component. The case provides the technical framework in the form of functional requirements for students to design and build a fully functional transaction processing e-commerce Web…

A school social work intervention called the "Getting Better Phenomenon" is redesigned as a curriculum resource for eighth- and ninth-grade teachers. The activities in the curriculum represent a synergy of provincial learning expectations; academic assessment and evaluation structures; teacher-guided delivery of student-generated "course" content;…

This document Agency is designed to assist teachers and other school personnel in the planning and teaching of the first grade mathematics course. Contents include: (1) Overview of Grade 1 Mathematics (mission statement, purpose and philosophy, goals, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics' Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics,…

This document is designed to assist teachers and other school personnel in the planning and teaching of the second grade mathematics course. Contents include: (1) Overview of Grade 2 Mathematics (mission statement, purpose and philosophy, goals, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics' Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics,…