With contributions from leading scholars, this compelling volume offers fresh insights into literacy teaching and learning--and the changing nature of literacy itself--in today's K-12 classrooms. The focus is on varied technologies and literacies such as social networking sites, text messaging, and online communities. Cutting-edge approaches to…

This study examined the relationship between teachers' beliefs and instructional practices and the mathematics achievement of their students. Data from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) were used to examine whether behaviorist and constructivist teachers had different beliefs about student learning and whether teachers…

A summary of B.F. Skinner's work presents background information and examples of the great amount of misinformation about the work. The article discusses areas in which Skinner made major contributions to education (consequences, A-B-C analysis, rate of response, explanatory fictions, verbal behavior, programed instruction, social criticism, and…

This document outlines principles of learning that should be followed by teachers of gifted students. Principles include: (1) students' need to experience challenge in the classroom; (2) students' need to attain as much as individual abilities permit; (3) curricular emphasis on students' personal interests; (4) meaningful experiences; (5)…

This study was conducted to examine how teachers' beliefs about computer-assisted instruction (CAI) relate to the types of instructional software they use with students, the types of computer related activities they provide for their students, whether they integrate computer usage with other instructional activities, and whether they had received…

Some personal reflections on instructional design and its relation to constructivism are explored. Instructional design in its present form is out of sync with the times in that its orientation, methods, and research base are behavioristic, or positivistic. However, a constructivist theory of instructional design is possible, particularly if…

Personalized instruction focuses specifically on each learner's needs, talents, learning style, interests, and academic background and challenges each learner to progress from one stage to another. This article presents a four-phase continuum of personalized teaching strategies, ranging from behavioral approaches (reinforcement and feedback)…

The relationships among teaching, testing, and learning are examined and reconceptualized based on different theories and computer adaptive testing. Approaches that integrate teaching, testing, and learning include: (1) behavioral psychology; (2) cognitive psychology; and (3) computer adaptive testing (CAT). Some behaviorists have assumed that all…

This paper explains how oral competence in foreign languages is developed by applying constructivist pedagogic methodology to the four language skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Foreign language constructivist methodology departs from the information processing model and behaviorist teaching that guide the transmission of…

Presents a constructivist view of mathematics, mathematics teaching, and mathematics achievement, and differentiates this view as an alternative to the typical traditional perspective of these terms. Discusses the roots of this approach in contemporary information-processing psychology. (TW)

Current approaches to instruction of students with autism and severe behavioral disorders are reviewed, specifically the behavioral framework and the community adaptation framework. In contrast to such approaches, which overemphasize teacher control over student behavior, a facilitative approach to enhancing students' communicative competence is…

This report synthesizes research on helping at-risk students meet academic standards. The studies chosen had to be published after 1984, be implemented in the United States, relate to K-12 students, directly assess students' academic achievement, address strategies that could be implemented in the regular classroom, and use strategies targeting…

This cognitively-oriented book focuses on learning and instruction. Specific applications and implications of learning theories are discussed and examples are drawn from educational situations and educational problems. Theoretical concepts are illustrated in concrete terms and a wide variety of examples are provided. The text embodies a theme of…