The author believes that in mathematics education, with ourselves AND with students or learners, people need to embrace failure as a beautiful thing -- an incredibly wonderful opportunity to learn more about the math or the tool or the people. The five characteristics of provocative objects can help to understand how to design such lovely failure,…

This monograph comprises five papers presented at a symposium whose primary purpose was to discuss the role of direct observational techniques in the study of certain learning outcomes and of certain learning and instruction process variables in school settings. Each study represents an attempt to apply direct observational techniques to the…

When organizations employ professionals it is critical to comprehend the nature of professional identity as it relates to learning in the workplace. These findings indicate ways that professional identity influences workplace learning behavior in doctors of veterinary medicine. Using grounded theory, ethnographic investigation and analysis…

Three design strategies directly related to the development of instructional materials for rule learning were investigated. In the first of two experiments using both male and female tenth grade students, the degree of divergence between instances showed that contrasting irrelevant features resulted in better performance than matching irrelevant…

The primary objective of this study was to determine the existence of a relationship between free-recall learning and breadth of categorization, an independent measure of conceptual organization. The relationship between breadth of categorization and more conventional measures of organization was also investigated. Two free-recall tasks…

Intended to serve as a primer for future investigators, this paper surveys and analyzes research studies published between 1945 and 1980 which focus on the effect(s) of color on human cognitive learning. The question of whether or not color as a variable in the design of instructional materials enhances learning has been approached by researchers…

This study examined the effects of verbal and perceptual aspects of learner aptitudes in relation to inspection behavior performed while learning from written materials containing two modes of instructional content. Specific predictions were based on the theoretical consideration that requirements of different modes of instructional content were…

The purpose of this study was: (a) to develop a learning hierarchy for rational number subtraction using intraconcept analysis, and (b) to validate that hierarchy using the Walbesser technique and pattern analysis. Skills required to complete tasks within the hierarchy were operationally defined and ordered from both a mathematical and…

The usefulness of"memory" is being questioned as a concept for explaining the facts of remembering. The brain is an extensive and elaborate switching system for organizing sensory inputs from environmental situations and for generating appropriate and properly timed responses to them. The learning of knowledge consists of learning a…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the strategy of allowing a student to choose the sensory channel in which he learns most efficiently and to determine if this choice results in increased learning rates. It was hypothesized that allowing a student to learn in channels of his choice would result in higher learning rates than when he was…

Several different conceptions of the relationship between learning and development are considered in this article. It is argued that dialectical and ecological developmental orientations might provide a useful basis for synthesizing the contrasting frameworks of the operant, information processing, learning theory, and knowledge acquisition…

This paper outlines a model of learning and problem solving based on ideas derived from information processing models of memory and Ausubel's theory of meaningful learning. The model explicitly deals with the cognitive processes that are required for learning, and defines the conditions necessary for learning as the existence of relevant…

The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of adjunct objectives (AO) or adjunct rules (AR) on instructional materials. The subjects were 110 undergraduate volunteers attending Arizona State University. As each subject entered the lecture hall for the class, he was given an envelope containing the experimental materials appropriate to a…

The paper focuses on problems science educators and researchers must face before the advantage of paradigms can be realized. Examples of the role of paradigms in physics research are presented. A critique of paradigm use in physics is presented. Future variations of paradigms for science education are discussed. (Author/RE)

If there is to be some claim of uniqueness as related to adult learning problems it must come from the development of general principles for guiding learning tactics in the classroom. We are a long way from being able to discern how to correlate student/client abilities with appropriate tactics. Considerable research is needed to harness the…