Kappan's editor talks with Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa, a leader in the international movement to translate findings from neuroscience into usable knowledge for educators. Topics include neuromyths (common, but erroneous, beliefs about how the brain works), the current scientific consensus about how people learn, and the contributions that the…

The radical exemplar model resonates with work on perceptual classification and categorization highlighting the role of exemplars in memory representations. Further development of the model requires acknowledgment of both the fleeting and fragile nature of perceptual representations and the gist-based, good-enough quality of long-term memory…

In this "Open Dialogue: Peer Response," the author notes that in the initial paper, "Contributions of Educational Psychology to Understanding Student Learning: What Has Been Discovered - What More Could Be Done?" Entwistle lays out a useful summary of the way that psychology has contributed to an understanding of student…

Ambridge argues that there is widespread agreement among child language researchers that learners store linguistic abstractions. In this commentary the authors first argue that this assumption is incorrect; anti-representationalist/exemplar views are pervasive in theories of child language. Next, the authors outline what has been learned from this…

In this lecture I explore and conceptualize the anomalous spaces of perception and memory in art practice and research where experimental and alternative discourses and pedagogies can emerge. I argue that the instabilities and slippages between what is visible and invisible, known and unknown, in these spaces enable insightful and multivalent ways…

Black, Wilson, and Yao have identified a very real tension felt by teachers today that has been created by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in the United States and the National Curriculum Assessment in the United Kingdom. In many schools, formative assessment has either taken a backseat to summative assessment use, or many of the formative assessment…

In this article, we discuss school schedules and their implications in the context of chronobiological contemporary knowledge, arguing for the need to reconsider time planning in the school setting. We present anecdotal observations regarding chronobiological challenges imposed by the school system throughout different ages and discuss the effects…

The prefrontal cortex of the primate frontal lobes provides the capacity for judgment which can constantly adapt behavior in order to optimize its outcome. Adjudicating between long-term memory programs and prepotent responses, this capacity reviews all incoming information and provides an interpretation dependent on the events that have just…

Identifies previous metaphors for memory, such as Aristotle's "wax tablet" and the numerous storage and retrieval metaphors, and how storage metaphors are hampering reading research. (JC)

There is a sense of urgency in America today, reminiscent of the "space race" rhetoric of the cold-war era, that Americans must get their act together in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education because the Asians are coming. Many people believe that higher-education institutions in countries like China and…

This review of the literature on the workings of the brain in relation to learning and instructional design reviews recent research on both long- and short-term memory, and discusses findings on lateralized or "split-brain" functions. Problems associated with short-term memory are also considered, and the concept of the Tribune Brain is…

Describes the five types of memory: (1) semantic--what words and symbols mean; (2) implicit--how to do something such as ride a bike; (3) remote--data collected over the years; (4) working--short-term memory; and (5) episodic--recent experiences. Assesses the likelihood of each type's decaying over time. (JOW)

Involuntary mental rehearsal of foreign language words, sounds, and phrases is found consistent with current second language acquisition theory and case history reports. It is suggested the "din in the head" results from stimulation of the language acquisition device set off when the acquirer receives enough comprehensible input. (Author/MSE)

Reviews literature from neuroscience and mass communications regarding how media affects learning and memory and relates research findings to interactive multimedia. Topics discussed include knowledge and media; neurological conceptions of memory; media and memory; and interactive multimedia and memory. (Contains 24 references.) (LRW)

Human knowledge consists of schemata based on the specialized procedures used to interpret events in the environment. New schemata are created by modifying models of existing schemata, i.e., learning by analogy. This means that a new situation will be interpreted in accordance with the schema most similar to it in the learner's repertoire. If the…