This book is designed to provide parents and other adult companions with activities to do with children on outdoor walks. The activities offer adults and children a shared learning experience and have been adapted from the children's education program at Habitat Institute for the Environment (Massachusetts). The activities are arranged seasonally,…

An effective way to teach the concept of image is to give students a model of human vision which incorporates a simple mechanism of depth perception. In this study two almost identical versions of a curriculum in geometrical optics were created. One used a mechanistic, interpretive eye model, and in the other the eye was modeled as a passive,…

This study was conducted to develop insights into how teachers integrate calculators into their course of study. The researcher met with a fifth grade and a sixth grade teacher to plan and implement a 10-day project or mini-unit focused on promoting calculator use. It was agreed that the project would include activity-based lessons to introduce…

Team research is important in studying cognition as enactive. This paper contains four different pieces of research directed toward the evidences and artifacts of two students in Canada engaging in a sustained mathematical activity. These four portraits of mathematical cognition in action consider the conversation in which the activity occurs; the…

In an instructional message the contextual dominance is most often conveyed in the form of printed or spoken sentences. Within any sentence used in conjunction with a picture are nouns or phrases that directly relate to contextual elements within the picture. These are called referents since they refer to objects perceptible in the picture. This…

This study explored the teaching processes in mathematics education for adults and how they are shaped by certain social and institutional forces. The study addressed three broad questions: (1) What happens in adult mathematics classrooms? (2) What do these phenomena mean for those involved as teachers or learners? and (3) In what ways do "frame…

Teachers are being encouraged to use observational strategies for a variety of professional purposes in assessment and evaluation. Observation differs from just "looking" in that the personal experience of looking is transformed into a public event by the systematic recording of what is seen and by subsequent analysis and interpretation.…

The purpose of this study was to examine the convergence among observational data on children's temperament. Data were gathered through: (1) standard procedures designed to elicit discrete emotions; (2) parental reports; and (3) children's emotional tone observed during naturalistic mother-child contexts. A total of 112 normally developing 8- to…

This paper reports on a study of a group of university women working in science at an academic institution. The group included professors, graduate students, researchers, post-doctoral students, and science educators. Data were collected in the form of interviews, field notes taken during participant observation, and analysis of group materials…

This report describes the role of the vocational evaluator in identifying technology that will assist the client in overcoming functional limitations. The traditional approach to vocational evaluation as well as problems with this approach, including the limitations of standardized assessment procedures, are discussed. The report then outlines a…

This paper proposes that post-reform mathematics teaching may be characterized as "improvisational." Observations of an extended mathematical investigation from a summer institute for elementary teachers are used to examine four aspects of improvisational practice: (1) the structuring of the activity; (2) planning and preparing that is…

An optimization model is presented that allows test assemblers to control the shape of the observed-score distribution on a test for a population with a known ability distribution. An obvious application is for item response theory-based test assembly in programs where observed scores are reported and operational test forms are required to produce…

One of the early training innovations in counselor preparation consisted of fishbowling. This article describes the theoretical background, development, and use of a fishbowl facility in the human services training programs of a counselor education program. In psychology, the term "fishbowl" first referred to the observation of one group…

This learning packet, one in a group of eight, was developed by the Merchants Millpond State Park in North Carolina to teach students in grades 4-6 about the habitat and lifestyle of the beaver. Loose-leaf pages are presented in nine sections that contain: (1) introductions to the North Carolina State Parks System, the Merchants Millpond State…

In the last few years educational researchers have become increasingly aware of the need to examine interaction among students to understand the impact of cooperative small groups on learning. For this study 26 students in an 11th-grade Algebra II/Trigonometry class were trained to use a didactic cooperative learning technique called scripted…