Advanced multimedia techniques offer significant learning potential for students. Dale (1946, 1954, 1969) developed a Cone of Experience (CoE) which is a hierarchy of learning experiences ranging from direct participation to abstract symbolic expression. This paper updates the CoE for today's technology and learning context, specifically focused…

Examines some of the issues that underlie the conceptual structure of the computational approach to cognition. Finds that this approach construes symbolization too narrowly, thereby blocking more adequate treatments of learning and acquisition of skills. Discusses the notion of symbol and symbolization and suggests an alternative approach to the…

Examines Kolers and Smythe's 1984 paper on the computational approach to cognition. Considers: (1) five specific criticisms of the computational approach, (2) their analysis of the conceptual basis of symbolization, and (3) their proposed alternative approach. Summarizes their position and discusses its shortcomings. (SED)

Discusses Kolers and Smythe's 1984 paper on the computational approach to cognition. Suggests some factors that support the continued emphasis on the analytic approach of the psychological representation of knowledge, but also acknowledges that they have provided a useful set of distinctions and at least one vocabulary for describing them. (SED)

Discrimination - learning behavior of children is analyzed in terms of two theoretical orientaitons: the mediational - attention conception, and a coordinated single-unit and mediational S-R formulation. The influence of verbal labels and other symbolic representational responses is discussed. (NH)

It is suggested that most of the things people learn are not taught; they are learned by induction. Learning and teaching theories are analyzed with a focus on the induction theory and its implications. The symbol processing carried out by computers is used as a point for comparison. (JMD)

In the pair of experiments reported here the authors investigated the relationship between meaningfulness of problem statements and subjects' use of these statements in problem-solving tasks. Subjects (96 university students) were required to memorize meaningful formulae such as "volume = area x height" or corresponding symbolic formulae such as…

Discusses the findings of a recent study concerning the ability of an infant to see an object as a symbol. Reports that infants between 36 and 39 months old significantly outperformed informed infants between 30 and 32 months old on a symbolic task. (TW)

Reports on a study in which the symbolic relation between a scale model and the larger space that it represents was displayed by two groups of young children. Three-year-old children outperformed 2.5-year-olds in finding an object in a room after seeing an analogous object hidden in a model. (TW)

Discusses the need for a sustained and systematic effort toward establishing a theoretical framework for educational simulations, proposes the adaptation of models borrowed from the natural and applied sciences, and describes three simulations based on such a model adapted using Brunerian learning theory. Sixteen references are listed. (LLS)

The author emphasizes the importance of concepts and mathematical form in a discussion of understanding mathematics. (MN)