The term "open education" has often been confused with the concept of open area classrooms, not only among educators and the public, but in research as well. The effects of these two concepts were tested in a study of 56 teachers and their students in fifth- and sixth-grade classes in British Columbia. The results showed classroom types…

This collection of lessons was developed as a result of a study/travel seminar undertaken during the summer of 1999. The goal of the project was to develop and disseminate exemplary lessons for teaching about the role of the Federal Republic of Germany in the European Union. These lessons are designed so that they may be used individually via…

This paper tries to explain why all the students of a same class who have got the same teaching do not go so far in their conceptual change. Here we have studied the students' conceptual change about volcanoes in a French 5th grade. The different students' preconceptions before teaching have been categorized and related to the well-known…

The assertion that the guaranteed anonymity of the respondent is an essential aspect of the accurate measurement of attitude by means of questionnaires was tested among children in relationship to a questionnaire measuring attitude towards religion. No significant difference in attitude scores was found. (Author/GK)

The effect of free- versus no-talk conditions between target and peer subjects under vicarious reward conditions was examined. Data collected from fourth graders on an alphabet reproduction task showed that vicarious reinforcement effects occurred when verbal communication of reward enjoyment to nonreward subjects was possible. (Author/BW)

Evaluated an experimental program in which students were taught to design models as a tool in the learning of percentages and compared results with outcomes from a control group in which teachers directly provided models. Results for 121 fifth graders in The Netherlands show significantly better performance in experimental condition than in the…

Observations of each child (n=24) in two sixth grade art rooms in Ankara, Turkey, and the building by students of 1/20 models of ideal art rooms found three elements of creativity (person, process, and product) were significantly different from each other. Process and product occurring within the same environment were highly correlated with each…

Discussion of visual media and television literacy focuses on a course that was developed to improve the visual literacy of 12- and 13-year-old students in the United Kingdom. Testing for the experimental and control groups is explained, and implications for the development of television literacy are suggested. (23 references) (LRW)

The use of a travel writer's approach to social studies instruction, where students gather information to write travel guides about countries they're studying, is illustrated through activities for studies about Egyptian passport and visa applications, currency, history, language, and art. (CB)

Investigated cognition in children with high, moderate, and low test anxiety under naturalistic test-taking conditions. Children with high test anxiety not only reported more negative self-evaluations and more off-task thoughts but also more on-task and coping thoughts. No "task-facilitating" role for these on-task and coping cognitions…

Reports on an extensive study conducted with 10- to 12-year-old children in 3 Moscow schools to determine their aesthetic perceptions and comprehension of layers of metaphoric meanings in the Leningrad Theatre for Young Spectators' production of "Bambi." Shows that metaphoric comprehension decreases within this age group, countering the…

Describes a Costume Project wherein Australian Grade Six students and Prep students collaborated to produce costumes from paper, which were later paraded by the Preps at the school Opening Evening. (NH)

Applied a between-grade design to the estimation of school effectiveness and examined the agreement between the resulting estimates and those obtained from the traditional statistical control model. Analysis of data from 11,099 intermediate-grade students in Israel shows that neither method produced estimates that were stable across grade level…

Studied the effect of text design on the comprehension of photosynthesis of 209 Finnish fifth graders who studied a traditional text or a conceptual change text that tried to foster met a conceptual awareness. Children who studied the conceptual change text performed better than the traditional text group. (SLD)

In the Hypothesis-Experiment-Instruction (HEI) method students are presented with a problem with three or four answer alternatives, which leads them later to recognize the distribution of choices, discuss a variety of ideas among them, and integrate distributed pieces of information. This study examined the effects of presenting a problem with or…