Hong Kong has been actively promoting a student-centered approach to teaching since the 1980s. Despite this effort, students in Hong Kong still tend to be traditional learners who rarely experience and gain from real student-centered learning. While teachers hold a "quantitative" concept of learning and focus on transmitting declarative…

This study tested for deep understanding and critical thinking about basic quantum chemical concepts taught at 12th grade (age 17-18). Our aim was to achieve conceptual change in students. A quantitative study was conducted first (n = 125), and following this 23 selected students took part in semi-structured interviews either individually or in…

In this article, the authors discuss the context of urban special education and the complexities of meeting the demands of standards-based reform in urban settings. The study presented highlights the voices of urban special educators in two large urban school districts as they navigate meeting the demands of teaching students with disabilities,…

Purpose: This paper aims to describe a method of teaching that is based on Novak's concept-mapping technique. Design/methodology/approach: The paper shows how concept mapping can be used to measure prior knowledge and how simple mapping exercises can promote the integration of teachers' and students' understandings in ways that are meaningful.…

Three computer-based experiments which tested human participants in a non-immersive virtual watermaze task sought to determine factors which dictate whether the presence of a visual platform disrupts locale learning and taxon learning. In Experiment 1, the visible platform disrupted locale but not taxon learning based on viewpoint-independent and…

This paper presented the achievements of the expert performance approach. The 10-year rule of expertise is one of them, a very practical rule. However, the expert performance approach does not answer some important questions directly arising out of its main statements. The cognitive-developmental theory of giftedness can help in this regard…

The phrase "no child left behind" has become a familiar expression in American education circles and in popular culture. The sentiment implied by these four words is noble. However, the effects of the top-down implementation of the high-stakes testing provisions of the law have been anything but salutary for public school children,…

Although cultural stereotypes of Asian students as being prone to rote learning, passive and teacher-dependent have been under criticism, the issue of the extent to which Asian heritage culture impacts on Asian students' learning attitudes and behaviour warrants further investigation. This paper reports on an empirical study which compares…

The traditional presumption in higher education that subject-matter knowledge is sufficient for effective teaching is breaking down. One cause of this change is the growing knowledge about how people learn, a consequence of which is a heightened focus on student-centered teaching practices. Another is the increasing diversity of students seeking…

High school teacher Megan Behrent reflects on the impact of Obama's election on the students in her high school classroom. Obliged to temper her students' joyful exuberance on the morning of November 5, 2008, Behrent found that the election fervor highlighted for her the ways that schooling under NCLB has constrained both educators and students,…

Publication of this piece is intended as a tribute to the late Professor M. Kazim Bacchus who passed away in March 2007. The paper provides a general discussion concerning the social and educational challenges faced by small nation states in an age characterised by globalisation. The analysis first identifies some of the basic features of small…

The following study describes how eighth grade social studies students used strategies to learn material in their social studies class. Using case study methodology, the researcher explored the strategies that students used to learn information, the frequency of their strategic usage, and the students' methods for acquiring strategies. Students…

In this article, the author presents an innovative approach to teaching multiplication facts for children in middle school or younger. After introducing the dangers of some contradictions that persist, relating a brief summary of related research and guidelines regarding math facts and their relation to strategic approaches to more complex math,…

The island of Cyprus embodies two distinct communities having their own systems of education. On the road to EU certain parallelisms need to be set as it is the goal of this study on math's education. This paper will concentrate on K1-K12 math's education. The topics to be dealt with will cover math's curriculum at all levels; weekly distribution…

This article focused on the investigation of the differences in the frequency of language learning strategy use by successful and unsuccessful first-year students of a Chinese university. The study found that successful students used a wider range of learning strategies for EFL learning significantly more frequently than unsuccessful students. It…