This guide is a joint effort from the Forum for Youth Investment and the Finance Project designed to help decision makers and community leaders both learn the importance of a good children youth and families (CYF) resource map and lay out the process of creating or improving a CYF resource map of their own. The handbook has been designed to…

In our current climate of standards-based reform, efforts abound to have all students reach the same goals. At the same time, other educational reforms, such as inclusion, are creating increasingly diverse populations of students in general education classrooms. Consequently, teachers often view inclusion and standards-based reform as incompatible…

The underlying theme of this book illustrates how constructivist ideas can be used by science and mathematics educators for research and the further improvement of educational practice. Authors from various parts of the world describe their work investigating students' conceptions, improving teaching and curricula, and enhancing teacher education…

The first of two parts in this document is a student workbook which is designed to teach students how to construct a concept map, i.e., a graphic arrangement of the key concepts in a body of subject matter with connecting lines labelled to show valid and meaningful relationships between the chosen concepts. The workbook provides a discussion of…

This publication contains 24 studies which focus on: the fostering of inquiry in secondary school science laboratories; realistic expectations for traditional laboratory work; a content-based, college-level science course for all students; understanding learning at the classroom level; transitions and student task involvement; a project to…

An evaluation of application of the conceptual mapping technique (Inglis, 2003) to the team-based design of fourteen courses in an Engineering undergraduate program is described. The evaluation employed a method of scoring each conceptual map against criteria tied to the objectives of the design process. The evaluation method was found to be…

Concept mapping leads students away from rote learning and toward true understanding of concepts and their relationships. Several sample and student maps on earth science topics are presented and discussed. Applications for science instructors, students, researchers, and teacher educators are also considered. (DH)

A longitudinal study of students' developing understanding of decimal notation has been conducted by testing over 3000 students in Grades 4 to 10 up to 7 times. A pencil-and-paper test based on a carefully designed set of decimal comparison items enabled students' responses to be classified into 11 codes and tracked over time. The paper reports on…

The components of complex domains have dynamic, interdependent relationships that are often unstable. A useful method for representing relationships among elements in complex systems is causal influence diagramming, often described as concept mapping. This study employs the use of software applications, traditional assessment, and case studies to…

This paper presents three activities developed from research on the life-career development process of youth. The activities are designed to stimulate young people to develop new views of self within the context of their world. The possible selves mapping exercise, community life-space mapping, and photographic displays are self-assessment and…

Concept maps are visual representations of knowledge structure and thought. Not enough attention has been paid to the measurement and influence of preservice teachers' knowledge structure and its development over time. This study implemented instructional scaffolding interventions in order to determine the effect on preservice teachers' knowledge…

This symposium on theory building consists of three presentations. "A Multilevel Theory of Organizational Performance: Seeing the Forest and the Trees" (Susan Reynolds Fisher) presents the process used to develop this theory and analyzes emergent insights. It discusses how the theory succeeds in mapping relationships across aspects and…

The Office of Institutional Development and Technology and the Public Information Office created this report that identifies several topics of research in order to inform marketing efforts associated with enrollment management. The report is based upon demographic studies done at the College of Canyons to measure things such as changes in the size…

A method to facilitate collaborative learning in complex learning environments was developed and evaluated. Sixteen college students of educational science were given the CoStructure-Tool, a task-specific computer-based tool developed on the basis of concept mapping techniques to support the processes of knowledge construction in collaborative…

This paper argues that successful programs for students with learning disabilities provide ongoing, intensive, explicit, and direct instruction in learning strategies that enable students to become independent learners. It then describes SMARTER teaching, a method developed to help teachers shift their approaches to teaching to make them more…