TITLE Enhancing Conceptual Learning by Understanding Levels of

Any number of successful teaching strategies use a mixture of methods rich in language use to enhance conceptual learning. Not all language-rich teaching leads to equivalent conceptual gain. A year-long study was conducted in three high school physics classes to provide empirical support for the existence of effects of varying level of language-rich teaching. Three levels (low, medium, and high) of language-rich teaching were investigated. Each level was characterized by a unique language-rich teaching method: low level by hands-on, medium level by small groups, and high level by active mental processing (AMP) journaling (which structures students' dialogue with one another based on compelling demonstrations of everyday misconceptions, prescribes specific notetaking strategies, and requires that students pose an application question each day). First semester posttests revealed that the mean score on assessment instruments for the class using small group methods was higher than the class using hands-on techniques bu