Attitudes of preservice kindergarten teachers toward the integration of computers and the reduction of the digital divide in kindergartens

Educational technology research and development - Given the great importance of integrating computers into kindergartens and the fact that today such integration has been implemented only...     

Congruence between mother and handicapped child's view of the child's sense of adjustment

The responses of 22 physically handicapped children to selected items of the Piers‐Harris Self Concept Scale for Children were compared with their mothers’ responses to equivalent items of the Personality Inventory for Children. The direction of the responses, whether children were more or less positive in self‐evaluation than mothers perceived them to. be, was analyzed with respect to sex of child, type of school attended, and diagnosis of handicap (cerebral palsy or spina bifida). Only diagnosis of handicap was significantly related to the tendency for children to be either less or more positive in response to the items than their mothers, with cerebral palsy children more positive and spina bifida children consistently less positive in direction. Possible explanations are considered, with particular reference to the children's views regarding peer relationships.     

A worldwide intercultural network: exploring electronic messaging for instruction

A worldwide international computer network has been developed to provide students from different cultures with opportunities to work cooperatively. Prototype activities have been developed and tested which facilitate and contextualize interactions among secondary and college students. Joint projects in language, science and social studies are carried out using an overnight electronic network to coordinate parallel surveys and to exchange findings of joint research. The instructional utility of these activities and the technical and organizational aspects of the network are discussed. Receiving-end translation as a method for achieving understanding across languages is reported.     

Effects of Calculator Use on Scores on a Test of Mathematical Reasoning

A sample of college-bound juniors from 275 high schools took a test consisting of 70 math questions from the SAT. A random half of the sample was allowed to use calculators on the test. Both genders and three ethnic groups (White, African American, and Asian American) benefitted about equally from being allowed to use calculators; Latinos benefitted slightly more than the other groups. Students who routinely used calculators on classroom mathematics tests were relatively advantaged on the calculator test. Test speededness was about the same whether or not students used calculators. Calculator effects on individual items ranged from positive through neutral to negative and could either increase or decrease the validity of an item as a measure of mathematical reasoning skills. Calculator effects could be either present or absent in both difficult and easy items     

Mission to Planet Markle: Problem-Based Learning for Teaching Elementary Students Difficult Content and Practices

Research in Science Education - Young children can struggle to learn difficult disciplinary content and important skills for practicing science. Problem-based learning (PBL) may be useful for...     

On computing a buy/copy policy using the Pitt-Kraft model

The Pitt-Kraft model of buying versus photocopying results in a small, but complex, nonlinear program. This paper identifies a Kuhn-Tucker point and demonstrates that for certain parameter values it is not optimal. A policy generation procedure is presented; the purpose is to prevent convergence of a primal algorithm to this inferior policy, which satisfies the Kuhn-Tucker optimality conditions.