How do you get a fourth-grader excited about history? How do you even begin to persuade high school students that mathematical functions are relevant to their everyday lives? In this volume, practical questions that confront every classroom teacher are addressed using the latest exciting research on cognition, teaching, and learning. How Students Learn: History, Mathematics, and Science in the Classroom builds on the discoveries detailed in the bestselling How People Learn. Now, these findings are presented in a way that teachers can use immediately, to revitalize their work in the classroom for even greater effectiveness. Organized for utility, the book explores how the principles of learning can be applied in teaching history, science, and math topics at three levels: elementary, middle, and high school. Leading educators explain in detail how they developed successful curricula and teaching approaches, presenting strategies that serve as models for curriculum development and classroom instruction. Their recounting of personal teaching experiences lends strength and warmth to this volume. The book explores the importance of balancing students' knowledge of historical fact against their understanding of concepts, such as change and cause, and their skills in assessing historical accounts. It discusses how to build straightforward science experiments into true understanding of scientific principles. And it shows how to overcome the difficulties in teaching math to generate real insight and reasoning in math students. It also features illustrated suggestions for classroom activities. How Students Learn offers a highly useful blend of principle and practice. It will be important not only to teachers, administrators, curriculum designers, and teacher educators, but also to parents and the larger community concerned about children's education. Table of Contents Front Matter 1 Introduction Part I HISTORY - 2 Putting Principles into Practice: Understanding History 3 Putting Principles into Practice: Teaching and Planning 4 They Thought the World Was Flat? Applying the Principles of How People Learn in Teaching High School History Part II MATHEMATICS- 5 Mathematical Understanding: An Introduction 6 Fostering the Development of Whole-Number Sense: Teaching Mathematics in the Primary Grades 7 Pipes, Tubes, and Beakers: New Approaches to Teaching the Rational-Number System 8 Teaching and Learning Functions Part III SCIENCE - 9 Scientific Inquiry and How People Learn 10 Teaching to Promote the Development of Scientific Knowledge and Reasoning About Light at the Elementary School Level 11 Guided Inquiry in the Science Classroom 12 Developing Understanding Through Model-Based Inquiry A FINAL SYNTHESIS: REVISITING THE THREE LEARNING PRINCIPLES - 13 Pulling Threads Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Contributors Index

Clearly babies come into the world remarkably receptive to its wonders. Their alertness to sights, sounds, and even abstract concepts makes them inquisitive explorers--and learners--every waking minute. Well before formal schooling begins, children's early experiences lay the foundations for their later social behavior, emotional regulation, and literacy. Yet, for a variety of reasons, far too little attention is given to the quality of these crucial years. Outmoded theories, outdated facts, and undersized budgets all play a part in the uneven quality of early childhood programs throughout our country.
What will it take to provide better early education and care for our children between the ages of two and five? Eager to Learn explores this crucial question, synthesizing the newest research findings on how young children learn and the impact of early learning. Key discoveries in how young children learn are reviewed in language accessible to parents as well as educators: findings about the interplay of biology and environment, variations in learning among individuals and children from different social and economic groups, and the importance of health, safety, nutrition and interpersonal warmth to early learning. Perhaps most significant, the book documents how very early in life learning really begins. Valuable conclusions and recommendations are presented in the areas of the teacher-child relationship, the organization and content of curriculum, meeting the needs of those children most at risk of school failure, teacher preparation, assessment of teaching and learning, and more. The book discusses:
Evidence for competing theories, models, and approaches in the field and a hard look at some day-to-day practices and activities generally used in preschool. The role of the teacher, the importance of peer interactions, and other relationships in the child's life. Learning needs of minority children, children with disabilities, and other special groups. Approaches to assessing young children's learning for the purposes of policy decisions, diagnosis of educational difficulties, and instructional planning. Preparation and continuing development of teachers.
Eager to Learn presents a comprehensive, coherent picture of early childhood learning, along with a clear path toward improving this important stage of life for all children.

How Students Learn: Science in the Classroom builds on the discoveries detailed in the best-selling How People Learn. Now these findings are presented in a way that teachers can use immediately, to revitalize their work in the classroom for even greater effectiveness. Organized for utility, the book explores how the principles of learning can be applied in science at three levels: elementary, middle, and high school. Leading educators explain in detail how they developed successful curricula and teaching approaches, presenting strategies that serve as models for curriculum development and classroom instruction. Their recounting of personal teaching experiences lends strength and warmth to this volume. This book discusses how to build straightforward science experiments into true understanding of scientific principles. It also features illustrated suggestions for classroom activities. Table of Contents Front Matter 1 Introduction Part III SCIENCE: 9 Scientific Inquiry and How People Learn 10 Teaching to Promote the Development of Scientific Knowledge and Reasoning About Light at the Elementary School Level 11 Guided Inquiry in the Science Classroom 12 Developing Understanding Through Model-Based Inquiry A FINAL SYNTHESIS: REVISITING THE THREE LEARNING PRINCIPLES: 13 Pulling Threads Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Contributors Index

How Students Learn: History in the Classroom builds on the discoveries detailed in the best-selling How People Learn. Now these findings are presented in a way that teachers can use immediately, to revitalize their work in the classroom for even greater effectiveness. The book explores the importance of balancing students' knowledge of historical fact against their understanding of concepts, such as change and cause, and their skills in assessing historical accounts. It also features illustrated suggestion for classroom activities.

Special education and gifted and talented programs were designed for children whose educational needs are not well met in regular classrooms. From their inceptions, these programs have had disproportionate representation of racial and ethnic minority students. What causes this disproportion? Is it a problem? Minority Students in Special and Gifted Education considers possible contributors to that disparity, including early biological and environmental influences and inequities in opportunities for preschool and K-12 education, as well as the possibilities of bias in the referral and assessment system that leads to placement in special programs. It examines the data on early childhood experience, on differences in educational opportunity, and on referral and placement. The book also considers whether disproportionate representation should be considered a problem. Do special education programs provide valuable educational services, or do they set students off on a path of lower educational expectations? Would students not now placed in gifted and talented programs benefit from raised expectations, more rigorous classes, and the gifted label, or would they suffer failure in classes for which they are unprepared? By examining this important problem in U.S. education and making recommendations for early intervention and general education, as well as for changes in referral and assessment processes, Minority Students in Special and Gifted Education will be an indispensable resource to educators throughout the nation, as well as to policy makers at all levels, from schools and school districts to the state and federal governments. Table of Contents Front Matter Executive Summary 1 The Context of Special and Gifted Education 2 Representation of Minority Students in Special and Gifted Education 3 Influences on Cognitive and Behavioral Development 4 Early Intervention Programs 5 The General Education Context 6 The Legal Context and the Referral Process 7 Assessment Practices, Definitions, and Classification Criteria 8 Alternative Approaches to Assessment 9 Weighing the Benefits of Placement 10 Recommendations References Biographical Sketches Index

The Strategic Education Research Partnership (SERF) is a bold, ambitious plan that proposes a revolutionary program of education research and development (R&D). Its purpose is to construct a powerful knowledge base, derived from both research and practice, that will support the efforts of teachers, school administrators, colleges of education, and policy officials--with the ultimate goal of significantly improving student learning. With a vision of multiple networks through which focused, coordinated, and sustained programs of R&D would be carried out--often in schools or school districts that serve as field sites--the National Research Council proposed an organizational design that would implement the essential mission of SERP. The essence of that plan was captured in "Strategic Education Research Partnership. Following up with specifics on one of the networks proposed in that earlier book, "Learning and Instruction details the kind of research and development that would make a genuine difference to teaching and learning in three subject areas--reading, mathematics, and science. The proposals in this book have the potential to substantially improve the knowledge base that supports teaching and learning by pursuing answers to questions at the core of teaching practice. It calls for the linking of research and development including instructional programs, assessment tools, teacher education programs and materials. Best of all, the book provides a solid framework for a program of research and development that will be genuinely useful to classroom teachers.