Teacher-educator and researcher Daniel L. Kohut suggests in "Musical Performance: Learning Theory and Pedagogy" that there are many problems that result from the way music teachers often teach. Most teachers focus on the process, not the goal. The Natural Learning Process that Kohut advocates is the same process that young children use when they…

Notes that observational learning of a motor skill involves both observation of the model and self-observation. Examines observation of the modeled performance, including three moderators of observational learning: the properties of the model, the nature of the task, and observer determinants. Observer determinants are examined at length,…

Justifies including dinosaurs as a topic in the curriculum for young children if approached from the inquiry processes of science exploration. Suggests that this topic encourages observational, classification, and communication skills and the ability to compare, hypothesize, and derive conclusions. (AS)

The pleasures and advantages of informal learning are highlighted in a story about childhood visits to a fabric shop. Contrasts the unhurried, flexible, self-directed nature of informal learning situations with the more structured and controlled environment of the classroom. Discusses skills and lessons learned in informal settings and suggests…

Describes activities designed to help students think critically and to accurately process information. (FL)

The idea that breaks from experience are necessary and salutary in teacher education is a response to an enduring problem of teacher education: the fact that aspiring teachers come to their preparation with set ideas about teaching, learning, and schooling that fit with the larger ideal and institutional order into which they were born. Typically,…

Cooperative education is a learning strategy that fits very well with basic laws of learning. In fact, several basic important learning processes are far better adapted to the cooperative education strategy than to methods that lean entirely on classroom instruction. For instance, cooperative education affords more opportunities for reinforcement,…

This paper examines 10 principles of learning and suggests ways in which vocational education teachers may apply them in their classrooms. The following principles are discussed: reductionism, the law of effect, imitation and observational learning, classroom management without punishment, shaping, the law of primacy, token rewards, the law of…