The present article continues my work in logomachy and the philosophy of education. It turns to Bernard Stiegler's concept of the 'idiotext' as the means of terming what I have previously called 'particular sets of sense'. The gambit of the article is that 'intropy' (uncertainty provoked by informational complexity) provides a very useful concept…

This chapter suggests that individual and cultural/contextual contributions to learning and development can be understood as mutually constituting aspects of a holistic fractal process flowing across generations. To examine specific aspects of the dynamic mutually constituting process, the chapter suggests foregrounding or focusing on one aspect…

Edited by a diverse group of expert collaborators, the "Handbook of the Cultural Foundations of Learning" is a landmark volume that brings together cutting-edge research examining learning as entailing inherently cultural processes. Conceptualizing culture as both a set of social practices and connected to learner identities, the…

The development of flexible, transferable problem-solving skills is an important aim of contemporary educational systems. Since processing limitations of our mind represent a major factor influencing any meaningful learning, the acquisition of flexible problem-solving skills needs to be based on known characteristics of our cognitive architecture…

This article challenges the overemphasis in early childhood education on young children's development and its relative inattention to their learning. The author argues that learning leads cognitive development, and that early childhood educators should be more centered on teaching for learning and less on facilitating development. An alternative…

Many recent articles, research papers, and conference presentations about Lev Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (ZPD) emphasize the "extended" version of the ZPD that reflects human emotions and desires. In this essay, Michael G. Levykh expands on the extant literature on the ZPD through developing several new ideas. First, he maintains that…

An examination of how new knowledge is acquired reveals that knowledge is organized in global conceptual constructs called schemata, and that the process of knowledge acquisition can be conceptualized as the articulation and restructuring of these schemata. Assuming that a schema is a generative structure with implications beyond what is…

Education is not a respected profession because educational practice is not based on a solid body of scientific research and theory. Education is at a prescientific or early scientific stage of development. Attempts by educators to base their practice on behavioral science fail because behaviorism encompasses only a narrow segment of human…

This essay explores the characteristic failure of traditional formal educational methods to teach the learner much which will remain for long in that person's memory. It discusses a physiological model of learning/remembering and compares it to some other models and metaphors of cognition. It distinguishes between learning and remembering, and…

The author presents information related to brain growth and intellectual capacity. Work on early adolescent (ages 10 to 15) brain growth, its effect on cognitive development, and the implications that such research has on the capacities of early adolescents to learn are discussed. (Editor/KC)

Reviews how emphasis on thought and feeling, cognition and affect have been balanced in early childhood education at various periods in the last half century. (Author/MP)

Currently, three theories of learning dominate classroom practice. First, B.F. Skinner's Theory of Operant Conditioning states that if behavior, including learning behavior, is reinforced, the probability of its being repeated increases strongly. Different types and schedules of reinforcement have been studied, by Skinner and others, and the…

This paper outlines seven assumptions about teaching conditions that best facilitate critical thinking in the undergraduate psychology curriculum; the main ideas proposed in a model of critical thinking developed by a network of psychologists across the nation; and the application of this critical thinking model to the undergraduate curriculum.…