Instructions involving high-level questions and answers either were or were not given to fifth and sixth graders in three learning environments: cooperative, competitive, or independent. Students who received the instructions showed greater gains in recognizing and generating high-level questions. (GDC)

Describes a study unit on the Titius-Bode Law of planetary distances designed to be used in undergraduate astronomy courses. The format of the guide is based on a Piagetian learning cycle of exploration, conceptualization, and application. (HM)

Recommends that teachers use a curriculum development project (the World Studies Project) to help students increase their understanding of global affairs such as human rights, economic order, disarmament, the world environment, and the law of the sea. Activities and objectives of the project are presented and ordering information for additional…

The authors discuss positive and negative implications of learning contracts for classroom oriented programs. They show how themes and purposes can be organized within learning contracts, using examples from courses at Empire State College in New York. For journal availability, see SO 505 438. (Author/AV)

The author describes how Party, government, and social organizations supplement the school's influence in socializing and educating Soviet citizens--both students and adults. (AV)

Faculty members can use information about six components of the learning situation to increase student learning. The nature, function, and interrelationships of the following elements are described: instructor, content, medium, student, evaluation, environment, and implementation. (Editor/LBH)

This study of sixth graders showed that deductive teaching was significantly more effective than inductive instruction for some pupils. (MM)

The American Psychological Association's "Learner-Centered Psychological Principles" comprise a knowledge base organized around certain cognitive, affective, developmental, personal, social, and individual-difference factors. Teachers need self- assessment and reflection tools to assess fundamental beliefs and assumptions about learning,…

This article describes Generation X young adults as they are described by the popular press and in health education literature, focusing on sociodemographic characteristics, health characteristics and risks, learning characteristics, the conflict between Generation X and baby boomers, and ways to conduct more effective health education for them.…

The creators of a "virtual" professional development school say that young children pass easily between "real" and "virtual" learning situations. Online learning features much more independent learning and far less teaching, with students often setting the learning agenda. Administrators have changing…

Two studies examined the impact of temporal synchrony on infants' learning of and memory for sight-sound pairs. Findings indicated that 7-month-olds had no difficulty learning auditory-visual pairs regardless of temporal synchrony, remembering them 10 minutes later and 1 week later. Three-month-olds showed poorer learning in no-synchrony than in…

A critical and comprehensive review of a variety of research programs investigating students' thinking and beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing leads to the identification of nine theoretical and methodological issues that need to be resolved in future research on epistemological theories. (SLD)

In the continuation of an earlier study, 69 high school students who had completed an epistemological beliefs questionnaire in 1992 completed the questionnaire again as seniors in 1995. Beliefs in fixed ability to learn, simple knowledge, quick learning, and certain knowledge changed as they grew older. (SLD)

Two experiments involving skilled readers (159 college students) explored the benefits to student attitude and content retention of adding emotional interest, through seductive text, or cognitive interest, through signals for structural understanding, to scientific text. Results support the benefits of cognitive over emotional interest. (SLD)

Examines relationships among student grades, learning, and evaluations of teaching by assessing student learning using a pre/post design. Focuses on undergraduate students (n=652) in an introductory psychology course. Reports a medium relationship between student grades and the learning measure. Includes references. (CMK)