In spite of theoretical validation and legal mandates in special education for parent participation, many studies have indicated that parents' roles in the Individualized Education Programs (IEP) process are still not noticeable and influential and that too often they are not being treated as an equal partner with school professionals. In…

In this article, the author shares how her daughter, who was diagnosed with a profound hearing loss when she was a year old, taught her to teach, and demonstrates the importance of active communication. Teaching her daughter English as her second language has posed many challenges, but has also revealed successful strategies that the author has…

Everyone agrees that family participation is paramount to student achievement. Much has been written about the importance of parent collaboration in the schools. Yet, less has been written about the family who does not speak English and also has a child with disability. This article reviews the research on involvement of parents in the schools,…

Although public school districts in Southern California are experiencing declining enrollment overall, accompanying this decline is a continuing increase in the percentage of students classified as English language learners (EL). In one Southern California school district with an enrollment of approximately 5,500, EL represented almost 31% of…

As they begin their teaching careers, many new teachers have never attended school with, or lived in neighborhoods with, people of color. About 84% of the nation's teachers are White (U.S. Department of Education, 2009), and are often from middle-class backgrounds, while only a little more than half of U.S. public school students are White. The…

Often students' inquiry can be a great teachable moment as well as a "researchable moment." Today, even though much has been written about culturally responsive teaching, the author is often surprised to find that the notion of culturally responsive teaching does not resonate with urban teachers and when it does, they do not know how to teach…

Diversity in educational settings is generally understood as the body of services and programs offered to students, faculty, and staff that seek to ensure compliance with non-discrimination and related policy and law, and to affirm social membership group differences (broadly considered) in curricular, co-curricular, and workplace contexts. Given…

One of the most common obstacles the author finds when teaching media literacy courses is student insensitivity. Although this can exist for many different reasons, the media critiques that students submit in this type of class indicate that they've become indifferent to misogynistic, classist, and racist stereotypes. On the collegiate level, this…

John Bardeen worked on the theory of solids throughout his physics career, winning two Nobel Prizes: the first in 1956 for the invention of the transistor with Walter Brattain and William Shockley; and the second in 1972 for the development with Leon Cooper and J Robert Schrieffer of the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) theory of superconductivity.…

The Josephson effect, the 50th anniversary of which will be celebrated in 2012, remains one of the most spectacular manifestations of quantum mechanics in all of experimental science. It was first predicted in 1962 and then experimentally verified in 1963. At its most fundamental level the Josephson effect is nothing more than the electronic…

Many modern cell phones have built-in sensors that may be used as a resource for physics education. Amusement rides offer examples of many different types of motion, where the acceleration leads to forces experienced throughout the body. A comoving 3D-accelerometer gives an electronic measurement of the varying forces acting on the rider, but a…

In the framework of the Italian National Plan "Lauree Scientifiche" (PLS) in collaboration with secondary schools, we have investigated the mechanical paradox of the double cone. We have calculated the geometric condition for obtaining an upward movement. Based on this result, we have built a mechanical model with a double cone made of aluminum…

A consequence of the curvature of the Earth is that distant ships apparently disappear over the horizon. This article shows how you can use a simple photograph to help students obtain a reasonable estimate of the size of the Earth using little more than the mathematics of Pythagoras. (Contains 5 figures.)

In this article, I will extend the falling ball method to measure the viscosity of liquids regardless of the degree of their viscosity. For this, I will show that one can obtain a measurement of the terminal velocity of a falling spherical ball in a viscous liquid by solving numerically the equation of motion which describes the dynamics of the…

A sweet spot is referred to in sport as the perfect place to strike a ball with a racquet or bat. It is the point of contact between bat and ball where maximum results can be produced with minimal effort from the hand of the player. Similar physics can be applied to the less inspiring examples of door stops; the perfect position of a door stop is…