This article proposes the existence of an "Isadora Effect": the propositions that motor development plays a primal role in brain development, and the first understanding of symbolic meaning among young children occurs from an understanding of movement and gesture. Anecdotal evidence for the past few decades has demonstrated that dance…

A growing evidence base highlights the value of high-quality early childhood education (ECE) to children's cognitive and social development. However, far less is known about how families and children, especially in developing countries, participate in ECE or how these participation patterns reflect families' thinking and decision-making. This…

In 1973, British Columbia (B.C.) became the first province in Canada to forbid corporal punishment in public schools (B.C. School Act), followed by the majority of the other provinces. Alberta and Manitoba however, still have no provincially enacted legal prohibition, although many school boards have updated their policies to state that corporal…

No Child Left Behind legislation developed goals for every student to be proficient in each academic subject by 2014. California's students are far from meeting this goal, especially in mathematics. One Southern Californian school district, renamed Green Valley Unified School District for anonymity, began using Cognitively Guided Instruction…

International examination results have already influenced many countries to make radical reforms in education system. According to these results countries have been categorized as high, middle and low achievement in education. Turkey has also taken these results into consideration quite seriously and started to investigate to what extent there are…

Objectives: To outline the prevalence and disparities of physical activity among school-aged urban minority youth, causal pathways through which low levels of physical activity and fitness adversely affects academic achievement, and proven or promising approaches for schools to increase physical activity and physical fitness among youth. Methods:…

Why do some teachers demonstrate great cultural sensitivity in their work with children while others seem mired in stereotypes, perpetuating a view of diversity as exotic or denying that race is an issue in their classrooms? Why is it so difficult to change these dispositions of teachers? And what can we do in teacher education to further the…

Describes how the Spectrum Teaching Styles can help physical educators develop an instructional environment that allows learners to meet the national content standards for physical education while providing learners with a quality educational experience. The paper discusses the development and use of the Spectrum and the development of…

Describes benefits of and challenges to achieving the national standards for physical education by using the Spectrum reciprocal style of teaching, discussing how it can be linked to all seven of the national standards for physical education and how all three of the learning domains (psychomotor, cognitive, and social) have some connection, with…

Responding to a Congressional request, the General Accounting Office examined Head Start programs' progress since January 1998 in meeting performance standards for cognitive and language development, their use of curricula since the performance standards for children's cognitive and language development were issued, and the use of teacher…

Educators need accurate assessments of preschool cognitive growth to guide curriculum design, evaluation, and timely modification of their instructional programs. But available tests do not provide content breadth or growth sensitivity over brief intervals. This article details evidence for a multiform, multiscale test criterion-referenced to…

Standards-driven school reform is the national strategy to raise U.S. schools to a world-class level by the year 2000. Schools and school districts must develop plans, that show how to integrate the sets of national goals, standards, and assessments. This paper describes a school-improvement model (SIM) developed by the Gilbert (Iowa) Community…

Noting that assumptions about the teaching and learning of early childhood mathematics have changed substantially since the 1970s, this chapter examines recent research that may inform curriculum development in early childhood mathematics. The chapter begins with a consideration of the theoretical perspectives for defining an appropriate…

This paper examines the direct relationship between curriculum, instruction, and evaluation, suggesting that following a national curriculum and preparing students to take national examinations requires diverse teaching materials, teaching methodologies, and testing techniques to train students to apply their cognitive skills to thinking,…

A discussion of the "Standards for Foreign Language Learning" set by the language teaching profession in 1996 focuses on how the standards for communication skill are to be implemented in the second language classroom. Three different approaches designed to help learners reach the goals outlined in the standards document are presented:…