This study examines various features of foreign language program offerings at 220 public high schools in California. Foreign language program features were examined in relation to the school's Academic Performance Index (API), the school's socioeconomic status (percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch), and percentage of…

This article describes the development of multimedia stories produced by ESL children using a children-as-designers approach. The rationale for the project was based on the use of technology to help second-language learning children express their culturally-diverse backgrounds and perspectives. Stories were produced by ten foreign-born…

In this paper, we present the development and implementation over the period of more than 15 years of learning materials focusing on industrial chemistry as the main theme. The work was conducted in the Department of Science Teaching at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. The project's general goal was to teach chemistry concepts in the…

Several studies have examined the pedagogical implications and cautions concerning the use of humor in teaching. Humor has been associated with a host of positive physiological and psychological effects. Researchers have identified that educators who use humor in their instruction are more positively rated by their peers and their students; others…

This paper describes part of a project called Modeling Across the Curriculum which is a large-scale research study in 15 schools across the United States. The specific data presented and discussed here in this paper is based on BioLogica, a hypermodel, interactive environment for learning genetics, which was implemented in multiple classes in…

This article presents a design of educational software employing group competition using a large interactive electronic whiteboard, and a report on its experimental use. Group competition and collaboration are useful methods to cultivate originality and communication skills. To share the same space, the same large screen, and face-to-face…

This paper describes the process evaluation of an organ donation education program for high school students aged 15-18 years of which the effectiveness was established. The program consisted of three components: a video with group discussion, an interactive computer-tailored program and a registration training session. A cross-sectional survey was…

This study compared the learning outcomes achieved by 166 practicing substance abuse counselors who were randomized to one of three conditions: (1) a Web-Based Training (WBT) module designed to familiarize practitioners with the "Coping with Craving" module from the NIDA treatment manual, "A Cognitive-Behavioral Approach: Treating Cocaine…

One of the hottest areas of science today is the field in which biology, information technology,and computer science are merged into a single discipline called bioinformatics. This field enables the discovery and analysis of biological data, including nucleotide and amino acid sequences that are easily accessed through the use of computers. As…

In educational research, investigators in one field are often ignorant of similar research in other fields. Physics education in particular has undergone dramatic reforms in recent years, all based on insights gained from conducting educational research. Often, pedagogical methods resulting from research in one field can be revised and transferred…

This study looks at how the environment in an infant child care setting can have an impact on young children's humourous experiences and therefore their learning and development. With the use of multiple qualitative methods, participant and non-participant observations, journal writing, videotaping, interviewing, and document review this study…

This paper investigates changing modes of femininity. It asks: What are the discourses and discursive practices within which new femininities are constructed? What are the social conditions in which they emerge? How are these negotiated and lived by girls? What do these stories tell us about the complications of subject formation and what it means…

This study compared the peer functioning of a community sample of preschool boys with pervasive hyperactivity (N=33) and comparison boys (N=34), and examined the extent to which any differences in peer functioning between these groups could be explained by comorbid child conduct problems and parenting factors. The quality of boys' peer relations…

The current study is framed within an ongoing effort of probing students' attitudes and expectations about knowing and learning physics, which has driven several investigations during the past decade. The questionnaire we developed focuses on physics students' views regarding a variety of specific learning activities, which are presented by title…

One of the benefits of an applied research funding program such as those within the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Education and Human Resources is the reading and referencing across fields of study and application of ideas from diverse literatures for common social good such as STEM teaching and learning. This benefit resonates…