Teaching: the best job in the world. Yet, increasingly, it is considered one of the toughest professions. In recent years, practices have arisen and become widespread which overcomplicate teaching and increase teacher workload, while only having a marginal impact on pupil learning. "Simplicity Rules" explores how children learn and the…

In this important book for pre- and in-service teachers, early math experts Douglas Clements and Julie Sarama show how "learning trajectories" help diagnose a child's level of mathematical understanding and provide guidance for teaching. By focusing on the inherent delight and curiosity behind young children's mathematical reasoning,…

Uses R. Gagne and L. Briggs's nine Events of Instruction to discuss where video fits into the teaching and learning process, what educators can legitimately expect of video as an instructional tool, and where principles to guide the development of effective instructional videos can be found. (SR)

Considers three serious problems associated with learning styles: confusion in definitions, weaknesses in reliability and validity, and the identification of relevant characteristics in instructional settings, or aptitude-treatment interactions. Discusses four basic groups of learning styles that developmental educators should be aware of.…

Identifies how researchers have defined active learning, and synthesizes current findings on the instructional designs that facilitate hands-on problem solving. Proposes three additional areas of inquiry into the instructional needs of active learners. (SR)

Considers ways to successfully create an online community. Suggests that one way to engage students and encourage them to want to take responsibility and ownership for their learning is to construct a learning environment that places their ideas at the center of the learning process, not the completion of the course assignments. (SG)

Suggests that the more teachers can simulate learning conditions in their classrooms, the more effective their students' learning. Explores the degree to which the learning theory can be applied to quite different examples of real-world, complex learning. (SG)

The learning productivity approach to higher education attempts to gain productivity, not so much by reducing or cheapening inputs but by enhancing higher education's major output: student learning. In the learning productivity perspective, the principal problem is in teaching and learning inefficiencies such as excessive nonlearning time,…

Service learning, an instructional strategy for educators, has the potential to challenge students in diverse ways. It offers students experiential learning opportunities that are personally engaging, are educationally rigorous, require the direct application of knowledge and critical thinking skills, and transform both the community and the…

Considers nature of debriefing, its central importance in experience-based learning, and its relationship to briefing, as well as debriefing's purposes, their relationship to different types of knowledge being processed, and various ways to organize the process. Suggestions to make the debriefing experience more effective are presented. (MBR)

Research on the Dunn and Dunn Learning Styles Model has been conducted at more than 60 institutions of higher education and at every academic and grade level. Explanations of the 21 elements, the model, some research findings, and beginning steps for practitioners are provided to encourage initial experimentation with some of its variables.…

This article illustrates how classwide peer tutoring (CWPT) is used to orchestrate classroom processes related to gains in at-risk students' academic performance. The article discusses such classroom process variables as engaged time, success rate, monitoring, and questioning, and reviews CWPT's effectiveness in relation to each variable.…

This booklet synthesises the research on teacher professional learning and development that has been demonstrated to have a positive impact on valued student outcomes. Its findings relate to teachers who have received at least some initial teacher education and who are in the process of deepening their knowledge and refining their skills. The…

This report discusses how three major strains of educational research are converging on a compelling new concept: critical thinking is not a set of skills to be taught, but a natural capacity, involving creating and revising patterns of information to be exercised and strengthened. Thus, according to the report, the appropriate classroom practice…

The gains in knowledge about the nature of reading and how to most effectively teach it come from cognitive research. This booklet (in the form of a flipchart) synthesizes and summarizes much of the current research on effective instruction for improved literacy and greater student achievement. The booklet, a revised edition of "New…