In "The Unschooled Mind," Howard Gardner opines that educators who misinterpret the near cannot adequately focus on the far. Instead of challenging and building on children's real understandings (often based on a five-year old's experience), many schools simply ignore them and fill their minds with new and distant information. The real…

Reviews three books on the acquisition of Japanese as a second language: "Second Language Acquisition Process in the Classroom" by A.S. Ohta;"The Acquisition of Grammar by Learners of Japanese" (English translation of title), by H. Noda, K. Sakoda, K. Shibuya, and N. Kobayashi; and "The Acquisition of Japanese as a Second Language," B. K. Kanno,…

Criticism of the theory that massed practice depresses performance as well as learning asserts that any generalization based on some limited amount of admissible evidence will provide an incomplete description of the psychological processes underlying skill learning. (JD)

Reviews Karmiloff-Smith's "Beyond Modularity," suggesting that her work highlights phenomena that seem counter intuitive when regarded from current developmental frameworks, and advocates that understanding them requires more complex perspectives than can be supported by either extreme nativist or domain-general models of cognitive…

Reviews and summarizes "Things That Make Us Smart," a book by Donald Norman that defends human attributes in the age of electronic systems. Topics include human performance; kinds of cognition; kinds of learning; design principles for electronic performance support systems; and examples. (LRW)

Discusses four books that can help teachers offer students opportunities to engage in purposeful oral language activities. (PRA)

An adolescent aversion to competition helped the reviewer/marathoner appreciate Mariah Burton Nelson's "Embracing Victory: Life Lessons in Competition and Compassion" (Morrow, 1998). Nelson, a former collegiate and professional basketball player, focuses on female athletes' and nonathletes' attitudes about numerous competition-related…

Three "Handbook" chapters on school leadership responsibilities conclude that educational administration is a field where people can make a difference. Research provides firm indications of what administrators should or should not do. Constructivist teaching, teacher development, and school improvement are part of the larger challenge of…

Reviews "The Epigenesis of Mind: Essays on Biology and Cognition" (S. Carey and R. Gelman, editors), a collection of essays that present a hard-scientific vision of cognitive development. Examines the arguments this work articulates and then determines the place it occupies in the analysis of the state of developmental psychology as presented in…

Reviews "An Odyssey in Learning and Perception" (E. J. Gibson), a volume of collected works that present a first-hand account of many advances in psychology over the past 60 years. A discussion of the two basic questions that capture the essence of Gibson's research, "What is learned" and "What is information" is…

This commentary contends that Henry J. Perkinson's arguments in "Teachers without Goals, Students without Purposes" (1993) are, on the whole, a failure. This criticism is based on the following points: (1) terms such as "modernism" and "postmodernism" are used without adequate definitions; (2) the book inadequately…

Maintains that Tabors' edited work is the most comprehensive and practical book on the topic available and an essential part of the knowledge base for early care and education professionals. Highlights the book's practical suggestions, concrete examples to illustrate language principles, and recommendations for teachers. Asserts that the content…

Describes three encyclopedias available on CD-ROM: (1) Grolier's Electronic Encyclopedia; (2) World Book's Information Finder; and (3) Compton's Multimedia Encyclopedia. Ideas for how they might be used in the classroom are suggested, information retrieval versus motivation is discussed, learning processes are examined, and stand-alone versus…

Gives an overview of Educational Support Systems based on commercial off-the-shelf software (ESSCOTS), and discusses the benefits of developing such educational software. Presents results of a study that revealed the learning processes of middle and high school students who used a geographical information system. (JMV)

Reviews "Levels of Cognitive Development," which presents a theory of cognitive development integrating discrimination- learning research with understanding of higher cognitive processes. Argues that strengths include its presentation of systematic research and providing continuity between past and present models. Weaknesses include…