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Elementary Level (elementary + level)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	60%

Selected Abstracts

Psychometric data for teacher judgments regarding the learning behaviors of primary grade children

PSYCHOLOGY IN THE SCHOOLS, Issue 3 2002
Edward G. Crosby
The psychometric properties of the Classroom Performance Profile (CPP), a teacher rating scale, were investigated using primary grade children from economically at-risk families. Students were rated as they progressed from kindergarten through third grade. The CPP demonstrated high internal consistency yielding Cronbach alpha coefficients for the total score of at least .96. CPP ratings were correlated with scores from the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery,Revised: Tests of Achievement and the Social Skills Rating System,Teacher Form, Elementary Level. Results suggest that the CPP ratings were positively correlated with measures of academic achievement, academic competence, and social skills, and negatively correlated with problem behaviors. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]

Building a learning progression for celestial motion: Elementary levels from an earth-based perspective

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 7 2010
Julia D. Plummer
Abstract Prior research has demonstrated that neither children nor adults hold a scientific understanding of the big ideas of astronomy, as described in standards documents for science education [National Research Council [1996]. National science education standards. Washington, DC: National Academy Press; American Association for the Advancement of Science 1993. Benchmarks for science literacy. New York: Oxford University Press]. This manuscript focuses on ideas in astronomy that are at the foundation of elementary students' understanding of the discipline: the apparent motion of the sun, moon, and stars as seen from an earth-based perspective. Lack of understanding of these concepts may hinder students' progress towards more advanced understanding in the domain. We have analyzed the logic of the domain and synthesized prior research assessing children's knowledge to develop a set of learning trajectories that describe how students' initial ideas about apparent celestial motion as they enter school can be built upon, through successively more sophisticated levels of understanding, to reach a level that aligns with the scientific view. Analysis of an instructional intervention with elementary students in the planetarium was used to test our initial construction of the learning trajectories. This manuscript presents a first look at the use of a learning progression framework in analyzing the structure of astronomy education. We discuss how this work may eventually lead towards the development and empirical testing of a full learning progression on the big idea: how children learn to describe and explain apparent patterns of celestial motion. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47:768,787, 2010 [source]

African-American Students' Opinions About Foreign Language Study: An Exploratory Study of Low Enrollments at the College Level

FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS, Issue 2 2005
Zena Moore
Abstract: Persistent low numbers of African Americans in the foreign language teacher certification program at the University of Texas at Austin motivated the study reported here. Two groups of students responded to a questionnaire that sought information on foreign language experience at elementary and high school, as well as family experiences in foreign languages. Findings revealed that whereas very few students had the opportunity to study a foreign language at the elementary level, all were exposed to at least a two-year compulsory program at high school. These experiences were not motivating enough to encourage college-level continuation, nor were family experiences. Students' language preferences did not support previous findings that low enrollment figures resulted from language offerings that lacked ethnic and cultural appeal. Rather, the study found that there appeared to be little effort made to encourage African-American high school and college students to consider teaching career paths. Students recommended more aggressive dissemination of information to African-American students at the college level about the advantages on pursuing foreign language study. They overwhelmingly suggested including a foreign language requirement in all discipline areas. [source]

Turning Professional: Content-Based Communication and the Evolution of a Cross-Cultural Language Curriculum

FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS, Issue 6 2000
Gisela Hoecherl-Alden
Furthermore, the increasing demand for professional language classes makes it necessary to adjust the overall undergraduate program so that these courses fit meaningfully into the mainly humanities-oriented curriculum. If students are to bridge the gap between form and meaning, courses need to move from communicative training at the elementary level through an intermediate stage that combines communicative and content-based instruction. Finally, training students successfully for future careers in a global economy means that courses cannot focus only on content and form, but also must include a thorough development of cultural awareness. Applying ethnographic intercultural training methods to the language classroom ensures that the students attain not only linguistic but also cultural proficiency. The course structure presented in this paper demonstrates that professional school students can be trained alongside humanities majors by making minor but far-reaching adjustments to the elementary and intermediate language program, and without placing undue constraints on departmental resources. [source]

An introduction to the economics of natural gas

OPEC ENERGY REVIEW, Issue 1 2003
Ferdinand E. Banks
This paper is an up,to,date, but only moderately technical survey of the natural gas market. Supply, demand and pricing are discussed, and, in the light of the electricity deregulation experiment in California, where the expression "dangerous failure" has been repeatedly used to describe the extensive losses suffered by final consumers and utilities (or retailers), a modicum of attention is paid to the prospects for deregulating natural gas. Some microeconomics of the natural gas market is presented at a more elementary level than in my energy economics textbook (2000) or my book "The Political Economy of Natural Gas" (1987), and I make a studied attempt to avoid bringing the misleading Hotelling model (of exhaustible resource depletion) into the exposition. Finally, some comments on risk management with futures contracts are provided, and there is a brief mathematical appendix on futures, options and two,part pricing. [source]