Over the course of instruction, instructors generally collect a great deal of information about each student. Integrating that information intelligently requires models for how a student's proficiency changes over time. Armed with such models, instructors can "filter" the data--more accurately estimate the student's current proficiency…

Showcasing assessment practices that can help teachers plan effective instruction, this book addresses the real-world complexities of teaching literacy in grades K-8. Leading contributors present trustworthy approaches that examine learning processes as well as learning products, that yield information on how the learning environment can be…

The impact of crises on organizations has been stronger than ever. This article explores the role of organizational learning in crisis management, an area that has received little attention from HRD community. Recognizing the dynamics and interconnectedness of crisis management, organizational learning, and organizational change, the article…

This paper explores both the obstacles and the possibilities for students developing identities associated with science by engaging in solidarity-building classroom interactions. Data come from ethnographic research conducted in a diverse eighth-grade urban magnet school classroom in which the teacher taught out of field for part of the year.…

Over the last forty years, popular music in America has consistently shown great variety, originality, and evolution. While American music has clearly flourished and evolved over the last several decades, it is difficult to say the same for American music education. Although there are important reasons to preserve long-standing traditions of…

This article presents a case study concerning biographical learning as health promotion among 16-18-year-old school girls in a Danish upper-secondary school. The case study shows a conflict in the students' perception of the learning in traditional physical education (PE) compared to a four-week pilot project employing dialogue groups as a…

This study reports on the results of a research on learning styles and critical thinking skills of sixty eight postgraduate students of Master's Level Business Education Programs. These students have participated in both phases of our research. In the first phase, carried out in spring 2005, Kolb's Learning Style Inventory (LSI v.3) was the basis…

Whether media affect learning has been debated for decades. The discussion of media's effectiveness has raised questions about the usefulness of comparison studies, not only in assessing applications of technology but in other areas as well. Arguments that media do not affect learning are re-examined and issues concerning media effects on expert…

In this article, the author explores the promising practices of Audrey Union (all names in this article are pseudonyms), a white principal of Integration Middle School (IMS), which served nearly 400 students in sixth through ninth grades. Approximately 40% of the students were of color and a similar percentage qualified for free and reduced lunch.…

The numbers of disconnected youths (adolescents and young adults aged 16 to 21 who have dropped out of school and who don't have jobs) in adult education programs continue to grow at the Turning Point Educational Center in Brooklyn, New York. These youths can be particularly challenging to teach. They often have negative attitudes toward what they…

A new computerized environment introducing a variety of metacognitive support mechanisms (MSMs) in different phases of the problem-solving process was designed to influence students' transfer from solving structured problems (near transfer) to solving open-ended problems (far transfer). Two hundred and thirty one students (aged 13-14 years) were…

It is of major importance to use psychological tests and questionnaires that are carefully constructed so that their reliability and validity can be determined in different (sub)cultures (Campbell & Tirri, 2004). However, a necessary prerequisite for this is the development of solid conceptual constructs. Otherwise, the researcher runs into the…

Jean Louis Nicolet is a Swiss teacher of mathematics who found his subject so fascinating that he was puzzled as to why so many pupils could not share this enjoyment in their studies. He came to a conclusion which is now supported by the results of psychological research into the learning process: he suggested that the mind does not spontaneously…

This paper examines data drawn from interviews with homeless people who were undertaking a "Clemente" programme offered by the Australian Catholic University in the Vincentian Village in East Sydney. The "Clemente" programme, conceptualised by Shorris, is based on the belief that an education in the humanities empowers people…

Students in a large undergraduate biology course were expected to write a scientific report as a key part of their course design. This study investigates the quality of learning arising from the writing experience and how it relates to the quality of students' preconceptions of learning through writing and their perceptions of their writing…