Presents a series of investigations focusing on the biodegradable packing materials ("peanuts"), which provide a method for exploring science through experimentation. These activities can help fourth through sixth graders sharpen their critical thinking and science process skills. (PR)

Describes teacher activities for a unit on birds and the stations for performance-based assessment of student learning. Activities include predicting a birds habitat based on the foot shape, predicting the food of a bird based on its beak, identifying a bird by its song, and identifying bird skins using a field guide. (PR)

This study investigated how middle grades students provided with free access to manipulative materials use these mathematical tools in classrooms where their teachers are identified as Control-Oriented and Autonomy-Oriented. Also of interest in this investigation was how Control-Oriented and Autonomy-Oriented teachers administered the free access…

Students find performance-based assessment exciting because the tasks are intriguing and mirror real-life experiences. As this vignette of a middle school interdisciplinary coastal ecology unit shows, hands-on, teacher-made assessments can effectively evaluate students' mastery of process skills such as observing, classifying, inferring,…

Examines the relationships and development of communities of concepts related to heat and convection among fifth grade students. Discusses the influence of familial and cultural experiences on conceptual development as well as the extent to which competing phenomena affect the development of new conceptual understandings. (Contains 49 references.)…

A study described the social interactions of ability-grouped dyads as they construct knowledge of the scientific concept of balance to elucidate the relationship between interactions and conceptual growth. The verbal and nonverbal behaviors of 30 fifth-grade students were recorded as they completed three activities related to balance and levers.…

Examined teacher interactions with their sixth-grade students. Thirty-two "silent" students were identified and interviewed. Found that silent students were not significantly different from other students with respect to gender, race, or achievement but used silence to avoid risk and to control the classroom environment. (ET)

This study describes the effects of ability-paired student interactions on achievement as fifth graders (ten-year-olds) worked on laboratory activities relating to balance. Achievement gains were assessed (n=83) by analysis of pre/posttest differences on the Lever Concept Test. Audio recordings and field notes (n=30) were analyzed for the…

The student teaching field experience has proven to be one of the most critical components of teacher preparation programs, and yet little is known about how pedagogical skills develop during this period. The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine student teachers' classroom interactions over the course of a 10-week student teaching…

Nationally many middle-level schools are changing from a traditional junior high school structure (grades 7-9) to middle schools (grades 6-8). A case study examined the impact of middle school organizational changes that occurred as a large North Carolina school system converted from junior high schools to middle schools on science teachers and…

This study was conducted to examine how the organization of preservice teachers' (N=23) knowledge about teaching changed during the last year of their undergraduate program which included a teaching methods course and student teaching. In order to explore cognitive organization three tools were combined: multidimensional scaling, concept mapping,…

Examines changes in knowledge structures and beliefs related to class management experienced by middle school preservice teachers (n=23). The study charts changes in concerns, skills, and attitudes through the initial, middle, and concluding student teaching stages. A framework of change for class management concepts is reported and influences…