Despite being recognised as complementary to formal learning, informal learning is not yet well understood. Using a qualitative synthesis approach, we systematically reviewed how students' informal learning interactions are represented in health professions education research. Thirty-five articles were identified. Our three-stage analysis…

Deeper learning promotes students' active engagement in learning environments, so they can continuously explore, reflect and produce information to build complex knowledge structures. Consequently, deeper learning has become a major focus of scholarly investigation and debate. Multiple studies have been conducted to describe the…

Learning environment is a vast area and varies from time to time and place to place. In the broader spectrum, a learning environment may be teacher-centered or student-centered. The teacher-centered learning environment lacks active participation of students in the teaching learning process, and lecturing is a predominant mode of instruction.…

Discusses the relationship between instructional design and situated learning. The transfer of knowledge and skills to a variety of settings is considered; and ways in which instructional design can contribute to the goals of situated learning are described, including planning learning experiences that are situated in the real world. (24…

Research on learning-to-learn and some proposals made concerning its teaching are reviewed. Focus is on what needs to be achieved to show that learning-to-learn has occurred. Actual achievement is part of the answer, but the measurement of learning ability must occur independently of the assessment of prior knowledge. Intellectual capacities and…

Recent research has documented the variety of memory strategies children have in their repertoires at different ages and with different degrees of task experience. Of growing importance is understanding the processes by which children choose among available approaches. Evidence suggests that sociocultural influences shape individual repertoires of…

Outdoor education programs help students realize their "wild" nature by linking them concretely with their surroundings, providing stories that explain the natural world, encouraging feelings of wonder, and expanding identification with nature as parts of the world, previously perceived as "outside," become part of the self.…

The effects of educational practices emphasizing faculty control of the learning process on student effort to learn are explored. Research on student learning is summarized. Educational systems that do not acknowledge student management of their own effort will not succeed. (SLD)

This essay is an examination of the efficacy of group methods in the facilitation of learning. It describes and characterizes two learning experiences and reports the findings on some unconventional educational methods. It provides a summary of six principles of learning and reviews some essential literature which compares a variety of teaching…

Professional development is the cornerstone of school transformation. The first part of this two-part paper describes the professional development experiences of several hundred teachers and administrators in schools implementing New American Schools (NAS) designs and discusses the links between these professional development experiences and key…

Discusses curriculum theory in the context of professional education for library and information science, and outlines steps necessary for curriculum planning: (1) diagnosis of needs; (2) formulation of objectives; (3) selection of content from the universe of knowledge; (4) selection of learning experience; (5) organization of learning materials;…

Essential features of an outdoor integrated curriculum include experiential learning, whole process, authenticity, challenge, responsibility, and connection with the community. Additional factors that result only from outdoor learning include inescapable consequences, personal growth, and sense of wonder. Problems of curriculum integration include…

This packet contains seven research briefs in the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory's (NWREL's) "School Improvement Research Series" for 1995-96. Topical Synthesis #8, "Community-Based Learning: A Foundation for Meaningful Educational Reform" (Thomas R. Owens and Changhua Wang) summarizes lessons that NREL has learned over the past 20…

The reflections and theses on preschool children's literacy development presented in this book are the result of an experimental project carried out in Buenos Aires from 1974 to 1976. Chapter 1 discusses the educational situation in Latin America, traditional methods of reading instruction, contemporary psycholinguistics, the pertinence of…