Recent research in cognitive psychology has drawn attention to the important role that students' personal understandings and representations of subject matter play in the learning process. This paper briefly reviews some of this research and contrasts the kind of learning that results in an individual's changed conception or view of a phenomenon…

The current debate about education seems centered in concerns about scores on local, state, and national tests as preludes to entering the workforce fully prepared. In this exploration, stories about leadership, control of learning, civic life, and literacy are used to help refocus the educational debate. Our concerns should be how to create…

This book deals with changing school culture to bring about school effectiveness and to create a culture that enhances student motivation and learning. The argument is presented in terms of real world schools and in the context of a theory focusing on the child and learning that is generalizable and practical. The first part outlines a vision for…

The brain is the seat of intelligence, the interpreter of senses, and the controller of movement. Research efforts on the brain have increased dramatically in the past 10 years; some of the more promising areas of brain and behavioral sciences research are reported here. The research was performed by 22 separate Federal member organizations and…

Based on the comparison of a regular-sized (n=25) and an oversized (n=54) class of college students taught by the same instructor, significant superior performance was found in favor of the large class. This disparity persisted even when a switching regression model (with endogenous switching) was performed. Only 39% of the learning disparity can…

The relationship between instruction and instructional design is explored. The aim of instruction is to assist the individual as learner. The Learner, the Content, the Media, the Teacher Function, and the Context within which learning is to occur interact during a period of time to form an instructional episode (the CMT paradigm). Considering all…

"Professional development" has become the panacea of 1990s reform efforts. However, understanding of the breadth, depth, and nature of teacher learning experiences remains limited. Using an embedded case study design, this paper examines the factors that motivate teachers to engage in development activities, the ways they experience…

This booklet contains suggestions about the essential roles parents play in their children's learning and ideas about learning from New Jersey educators that enhance the parental role. The connection between parent involvement and children's success in school is a resource that needs to be expanded in many, or most, New Jersey schools. After a…

This book is designed to be a useful compendium of sound and practical ideas to help the classroom teacher, especially the teacher who is new to the profession. It is primarily aimed at secondary school teachers, although those who work with younger children may find elements of the book useful. The book is not intended to be read cover-to-cover,…

Self-regulation refers to the process whereby students activate and sustain cognitions, behaviors, and affects, which are systematically oriented toward attainment of goals. Effective self-regulation requires that students have goals and the motivation to attain them, and maintain a sense of self-efficacy for learning and performing well. A social…

Related research suggests that children may show some simple understanding of event covariations by the early elementary school years. The present experiments use a rule analysis methodology to investigate covariation judgments of children in this age range. In Experiment 1, children in second, third and fourth grade judged covariations on 12…

In January of 1987, a planning conference was convened by the Center for Education Statistics as part of an effort to study the feasibility of various approaches to the nationwide assessment of children's readiness for instruction in kindergarten and first grade. This report provides, in an appendix, the texts of the four commissioned papers…

This paper presents a procedure for making high school teachers' assessments comparable across schools for graduation and college admission purposes. Findings are presented of an evaluation of the procedure conducted in Victoria (Australia) between 1981 and 1984. This procedure, called "consensus moderation," compares teachers'…

A constructivist analysis of the concepts of communication and environment may go against the traditional ideas of realists. Both concepts are treated as subjective constructs of a cognizing agent. It is held that the basis of the constructivist theory of knowing as the idea that knowledge is a mapping of ways of acting and thinking and the result…

Patient care in a hospital setting is directly related to the professional information and knowledge exchange between physicians and nurses concerning patients in their own care. This exchange, while informal, is considered a teaching-learning transaction. In recent years, as gender ratios in medicine have changed, a new transaction has arisen…