According to Pat Choate, Japan's government and corporations are influencing what American youngsters learn in school about Japanese culture and history by showering K-12 educators with expense-paid trips and ready-made, propagandistic lesson plans. Despite Japan Foundation claims to the contrary, several educators returning from two-week trips…

A good lesson plan has an introduction, body, opportunity for questions, and summary. These components are bound together with time cues, media cues, practice and provide-help paragraphs, instructor's notes, and transitions. Motivational principles guiding lesson plan development are relevance, conceptual framework, learning outcome, method,…

Describes a packet of information and instructions for the props manager and crew of a student production. Includes definitions, steps to follow, checklists, and rehearsal tips. (PRA)

The lesson review is described as a tool that will allow language teachers to gain insights into the effectiveness of their lessons. It may help teachers build up complex cognitive schemata on the teaching/learning process. Sample lesson plans and reviews are provided. (Contains 21 references.) (LB)

Describes National Numeracy Strategy (NNS) and National Literacy Strategy (NLS) in England. Presents a lesson plan to discuss pre- and post-NNS. Emphasizes that NNS represents not only a change in pedagogy, but also something of a sea-change in terms of the assumptions about children's learning underpinning traditional mathematics education. (ASK)

Describes the use of lesson starters called Snappies to sharpen numeracy skills. Discusses teachers' views of Snappies, the difficulties of using them, and their impacts on pupils' performance in and perceptions of mathematics. (ASK)

Describes two class activities for moving new words into students' productive vocabulary. (RS)

Describes a demonstration in which a teacher or student can relight a blown out candle from a burning candle held about 2-3 centimeters directly above it. (SAH)

Advocates the teaching of spelling in secondary schools through record keeping of student spelling errors and minilessons based on these errors. (TB)

Presents five lessons designed to help students understand the form and function of the periodic table. (MKR)

Discusses discrepant events designed as a demonstration to present a situation or phenomenon that has an unexpected and sometimes very surprising outcome. Presents ways of developing science lessons linking discrepant events with the learning cycle as an example. (ASK)

This activity takes students through the process of fermentation. Requires an entire month for the full reaction to take place. The reaction, catalyzed by bacterial enzymes, produces lactic acid from glucose. (SAH)

Presents a lesson that provides students in the early primary grades with the opportunity to explore counting techniques and develop an informal sense of permutations and combinations. (Author/CCM)

Performance on a multiple-choice item in a public examination indicates that most students do not understand how fat is absorbed through villi. A teaching strategy is suggested to overcome this problem by helping students review their own ideas critically. (Author/MM)