The purpose of this study was to clarify the effectiveness of catch-volleyball as an introduction to nettype games, in which the aim game is to put together a series of ball catches in the home court and to master of skill of the ball flip. The subjects in this research were 4th graders, and the game was played by the following rules. Children serve the ball by throwing it into the opponent’s court with both hands. Within their court, the players had to pass the ball three consecutive times, consisting of catches and passes, after which they had to return the ball into the opponent’s court by either throwing the ball with both hands or by flipping it. From the results of the study, the following points had become clear: 1) Being able to serve the ball into the opponent’s court with both hands increased the serve success rate. 2) Since children were able to pass the balls that they caught, they were successfully able to perform reliable a strong sequence of catches and passes within their home court. Furthermore, the mean time per one attack decreased and the game became faster. 3) Since children were given the choice of returning the ball to the opponent’s court by either throwing the ball with two hands or flipping the ball, the attack methods naturally diversified. This also increased the number of attacking points scored. 4) Since children became keenly aware of the role of the setter and were able to double the points scored with flipped attacks, they increased the ratio of flipped attacks and as a result were able to acquire those skills more efficiently during game play. 5) Children developed the ability to move from their positions to cover their teammates or attack their opponents. From the above results, we concluded that catch-volleyball is effective as an introduction to net-type games.

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The purpose of this study was to analysis the function of formative assessment in construction process of scientific concepts. We created a structure for the teaching and learning process in formative assessment based on a structure proposed by P. Perrenound. We divided both the teaching and learning process into four steps. We designed the science class using this structure. Result indicated that teacher can support the children’s construction process of scientific concepts by performing the teaching process created in this study.

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The present paper discusses the transition of underlying assessment concept of the National Assessment of Educational Progress in Music, focusing on evaluation of attitudes toward music. Through examining the objectives and the exercises of the first three music assessments, this paper formed the following key arguments: 1) the second music assessment (from 1978 to 1979) placed more emphasis on measuring positive attitudes toward music than the first music assessment (from 1971 to 1972); 2) in contrast to the first two music assessments, positive attitudes were not measured in the third music assessment (1997) due to reforms towards a accountability-driven school philosophy; and 3) these music assessments considered aesthetic sensibility as more important than attitudes toward music in the affective domain.

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This study investigates what junior and senior high school English teachers learned from a six month overseas in-service training program, how they applied their acquired knowledge to their Japanese contexts upon their return, and what inhibited the English teachers from applying insights from their overseas experience to their home contexts. Based on the findings, some suggestions are provided for the improvement of future overseas in-service training programs. A questionnaire was used to collect data from 36 English teachers which were then analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively (the Structure-Construction Qualitative Research Method (Saijo, 2007)). Results suggest the majority of the English teachers are positive about the overseas in-service training program but do not firmly believe that the knowledge and experience gained through this program is solely contributed to their professional development. Factors which inhibited effective implementation of their overseas experience to their home school contexts included “the gulf between their gained knowledge and the local context”, “the lack of support from other teachers during the implementation of knowledge”, and “lack of opportunities for them to make meaningful contributions”. Components which could be improved in future training programs include “a support system after the overseas program”, “more opportunities for returning teachers to contribute” and “setting post-training program objectives for contributions before the start of the training program”.

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The objective of this study is to clarify learning effects and problems of two lessons to deepen recognition on how to acquire information about food. Previously, we developed two lessons for the general senior high school home economics subject “Basic Home Economics”. These were structured that students thought about food information in the media. The aim was for students to be able to eventually make independent judgments. In this study, we investigated the learning effects of these lessons by analyzing 154 student descriptions on lesson worksheets. The data indicated that more than 90% of students could recognize the need for independent judgment about food information, and that about 80% of students could understand what stance to take to judge food information. In addition, the data showed that the activity to think from the place of the information sender showed positive effects, promoting greater independent judgment because of a more concrete understanding from this point of view. Lastly, our data suggests that to make an appropriate decision as a consumer it was necessary to understand the situation from various points of views.

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The purpose of this research is to show the feasibility of a course in Home Economics for lower elementary school classes in Japan. In this report, the Home Making program (HMP) developed in the United States was selected for the fact that its Home Economics curriculum was developed for all years from kindergarten to elementary six. The characteristics and composition principles for the lower elementary school classes of HMP were analyzed and clarified. The HMP showed that U.S. and Japanese view was different, that “the subject of Home Economics should not be taught until the 5th or 6th year of elementary school” even though its homemaking curriculum for primary school was organized or based on the aim and principles of the subject were for all primary school years. This curriculum was based on the following principles: the problem of the wellbeing of individual citizens in a democratic society regardless of the age of the child. The problem was resolved by using the Home Economics subject. First, the children’s developmental goals were extracted from the results of each study. Next, these results were collated with the purpose and the content of the primary school education. The children’s developmental goals that had to be achieved for Home Economics by the end of each school year were accomplished. To achieve those children’s developmental goals, the concepts clarified in each field of research for Home Economics was organized into a dual curriculum structure considering the contents of primary school for all school years. During the class, the developmental goals concepts were created to be achieved through study based on the experience of the child who had attempted to understand the relationship with another subjects. Finally, this Home Economics curriculum created the composition concept “An Independent Citizen”, to correlate with each school year in order to acquire those concepts through the Home Economics class.

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The purpose of this study is to clarify the system used in the Electronic Keyboard Laboratory’s (EKL) curriculum. EKL is an outgrowth of the Manhattanville Music Curriculum Program (MMCP) which had a major impact on music education after the 1960s in the United States. EKL is by far the most rigorous system of any curriculum created by MMCP in terms of its correlative cultivation of conceptual understanding and dexterous skills. In analyzing the EKL curriculum the following three distinguishing facets were found: (1) in the component referred to as encounter its main activity is keyboard improvisation; (2) research based on improvisation theory from the Developmental Phase of Music Education as the preparatory stage of musical improvisation, the curriculum has stages for exploration into the characteristics of physical aspects of sound; and (3) the physical aspect in music make it possible to correlate their conceptual understanding with their dexterous skills.

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