Teaching Nature of Scientific Knowledge to Kindergarten Through University Students

Science & Education -     

Equity in access? The number of the books available in grade 1, 3 and 5 classroom libraries

Learning Environments Research - In this study, we examined students’ access to text, defined as the number of texts freely available to children in their classrooms. From 60 elementary...     

Preschool Teacher Uses of Video Technologies

This project was undertaken for the purpose of identifying media design and presentation features that facilitate the acceptance and use of video materials by preschool teachers who teach children with special needs. Information about teachers' awareness of, their preferences for and their uses of video materials and equipment was gathered from interviews, questionnaires and classroom observations. Teachers previewed a sampling of Sesame Street video segments and indicated the segments they thought were useful. The following design features figured prominently in the teachers' selections: segment length, production format, musical lyrics, curriculum relevance, content emphasis, interactivity, perceived interest to children, meaningfulness and simplicity of explanations. The results of a prototype videodisc tryout indicate that the teachers had no difficulty integrating video segments into their teaching routines.     

The Consequences of Teacher Praise and Criticism

A ‘visiting teacher’ gave her lesson, then asked children for evaluations of (i) how they regarded her, (ii) how they thought she regarded each of them and (iii) how they regarded themselves, so as to provide baseline measures for the study. On her next visit she formed three treatment groups by giving out her own evaluations of each child on individual cards, praising the behaviour of one third of the class, criticising another third while the remaining third received no feedback cards. The same measures were then taken a second time. From the results, children did not appear to process praise or criticism as mirror opposites. In particular, criticism appeared to be deflected into negative ratings of the teacher rather than of the self. Results are considered in terms of a selective gating hypothesis and wider implications are discussed.     

Rethinking Affirmative Action: Redefining Compelling State Interest and Merit in Admission

The disruptive technologies of the Internet and computers are changing our world in myriad ways. These technologies are also increasingly being employed in higher education but to what effect? Are the effects on higher education quality measurable, and if so, what is the effect on the traditional gap between high-income and low- to middle-income nations on this score? This theme is pursued in this article, which uses a variety of methods to probe the question. Because great controversy attends the notion of institutional quality, measures differ, and the effect of these technologies on that quality depends to a great extent on the definition being used. Low- to middle-income countries' usage of the Internet and computer technologies lags behind that of high-income countries, but projections indicate they are catching up.