Young children notice and make use of illustrations in picture books as they read independently as evidenced by statements such as this one from Sarah's retelling of "The Wolf's Chicken Stew": "He couldn't catch him; so he did like this (child folds arms across chest) against the tree". Scholars in the field of children's literature have long…

One of the ongoing challenges teachers of students who are deaf or hard of hearing face is managing the visual split attention implicit in multimedia learning. When a teacher presents various types of visual information at the same time, visual learners have no choice but to divide their attention among those materials and the teacher and…

Visuals play an important role in the teaching and learning of science and should be embedded within and supportive of authentic science inquiry. Both researchers and teachers believe that visuals have a great deal of potential to help students understand science, but in practice, these visuals do not always live up to their promise. Teachers need…

Learning and teaching are faced with radically new challenges in today's rapidly changing world and its deeply transformed communicational environment. We are living in an era of images. Contemporary visual technology--film, video, interactive digital media--is promoting but also demanding a new approach to education: the age of visual learning…

What does it look like to "understand" operations with fractions? The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) uses the term "understand" when describing expectations for students' knowledge related to each of the fraction operations within grades 4 through 6 (CCSSI 2010). Furthermore, CCSSM elaborates that…

Although it is a well-known fact that students' preferred learning styles vary, many instructors teach in the way that reflects their own learning style preferences despite the fact that mismatches in teacher-learner styles may result in lower student achievement. In a traditional ESL or EAP writing class, students who prefer to learn by reading…

As anyone who has taught or taken a statistics course knows, statistical calculations can be tedious and error-prone, with the details of a calculation sometimes distracting students from understanding the larger concepts. Traditional statistics courses typically use scientific calculators, which can relieve some of the tedium and errors but…

In light of emerging technologies prompting new avenues for teaching and learning, students are positioned to "create" to learn, with video production being an important process for literacy development. There is a growing need for innovative instructional practices in reading and writing that are aligned with student interests and the activities…

This paper reflects one cycle of an action research project that investigated how integrating activity, competition, and visual learning strategies through IWB/ Smart Response technology could engage a lower level Year 12 Advanced English class in NSW--a group of boys who felt disconnected from the course of study. After my initial reconnaissance…

The Human Timeline invites students to physically re-create biblical history. Each student holds a card that denotes an event randomly selected from the biblical timeline. They then arrange themselves chronologically to learn the correct flow of biblical history. Because of the movement involved and the arbitrary layout of the cards among their…

One of the most difficult topics to teach in geometry is the concept of proof. This article describes ProofBlocks as an innovative approach to helping students develop proficiency in proof. ProofBlocks is an intuitive approach to teaching proof that makes proof accessible to students without sacrificing the rigor of traditional approaches. When…

Social Stories[TM] are an intervention widely used with individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). This paper discusses a possible theoretical rationale that might account for the purported efficacy of Social Stories[TM]. Attributes of individuals with ASD in relation to Social Story intervention including difficulties with theory of mind…

Attempts at integrating mathematics and science have been made previously but no definitive, widely adopted teaching model has been developed to date. Research suggests that hands-on, practical, student-centred tasks should form a central element when designing an effective model for the integration of mathematics and science. Aided by this…

This article introduces a new practical visual approach, the Rules Grid, to support children who have social communication and interaction needs. The Rules Grid involves a system whereby behaviours of concern can be broken down into smaller behavioural manifestations which in turn lead not only to problem identification and specification, but…

When students come to class, they bring with them the most powerful processor known to man--the human brain! Our job as teachers is to discover and implement practices that will make the most effective use of those brains. The human brain is a very powerful processor of sensory information, especially with regard to the sense of vision. We can…