Do your students occasionally seem bored? That's ok, says John Spencer. Doing tedious tasks or spending some time without stimulation can actually be great for creativity, freeing up your brain to make connections it might not otherwise have made. Spencer walks us through why our modern culture is so resistant to boredom and how we can cultivate…

What should children and students read? This volume explores challenging picturebooks as learning materials in early childhood education, primary and secondary school, and even universities. It addresses a wide range of thematic, cognitive, and aesthetic challenges and educational affordances of picturebooks in various languages and from different…

Parents and teachers of children with Asperger's know only too well the feeling that they are not quite reaching the child, not quite hearing or getting it, not communicating just right, or at all. Offering rich insights into what Asperger's is like for the child himself or herself, this compassionate book will empower parents and teachers,…

This paper describes research that compares preservice early childhood teachers' cultural values and the values they believe are held by scientists. Using the Schwartz Values Inventory (SVI) (Schwartz (1992) "Adv Exp Soc Psychol" 25:331-351) preservice early childhood teachers cultural values were assessed, followed by an assessment of…

In this study we examined the relative importance of teachers' psychological states, school organizational conditions (teacher collaboration and participative decision making), and the leadership practices (vision, individual consideration, and intellectual stimulation) of principals at their schools in explaining variation in teachers'…

In her new book, popular author Ann Lewin-Benham draws on her intimate knowledge and experience with the Reggio Approach to present 12 "best practices" inspired not only by Reggio, but also by play-based and Montessori approaches to early childhood education. These practices are demonstrated, one per chapter, with scenarios from classrooms,…

Learning disability is a classification that includes several disorders in which a person has difficulty learning in a typical manner. Depending on the type and severity of the disability, interventions may be used to help the individual learn strategies that will foster future success. Some interventions can be quite simplistic, while others are…

Curiosity can be developed and nurtured through application of such educational principles as the rewarding of questioning, the use of open questions, delaying answers, accepting incompleteness in existing knowledge, etc. Teaching techniques for stimulating curiosity include brain questioning, role playing, hypothesizing, and pursuing curiosity.…

The paper outlines the operative principles for understanding learning and discusses how these principles can help in planning a functional program for a severely or profoundly brain-damaged child. Discussed are: (1) the role of memory in learning; (2) simple associative learning (Pavlovian Conditioning and Operant Conditioning); (3) Piaget's…

Cortical blindness is defined and its diagnosis is explained. Guidelines and sample activities are presented for use in a cognitive/visual/multi-sensory stimulation program to produce progress in cortically blind infants. The importance of using the eyes from birth through early development in order to form the nerve pathways responsible for…

Intended for teachers of theatrical design who need to describe a design process for their students, this paper begins by giving a brief overview of recent research that has described the different functions of the right and left cerebral hemispheres. It then notes that although the left hemisphere tends to dominate the right hemisphere, it is the…

This handbook provides a collection of stimulation activities that encourage a child's physical and mental growth from birth to five years of age. Emphasis is placed on making stimulation aids that are inexpensive or can be made from scrap materials. Advice is given about ways to carry out designated activities. All activities have been tried and…

Urges the use of the small-group activities to encourage class participation, stimulate interest, and develop greater understanding of the subject. Describes specific applications of this approach in undergraduate and graduate music education courses. Discusses practical considerations and offers suggestions for encouraging interaction. Concludes…

Proposes that questions in textbooks be restructured to include pre-reading questioning techniques as well as review questions and post-reading analysis in order to stimulate interest and give direction to the reading activity. Lists a series of questions for use in geography classes which provide a framework for seeking out salient details,…

Advanced placement teachers around Chicago find their own intellectual stimulation reinvigorates their teaching and benefits their students. Through a consortium, these teachers group together to explore content-based topics using a rich variety of community resources, including a top library, university and museum resources. "This is my…