Time and acceptance are criterion often used to measure the legitimacy and worth of an idea. Two decades have passed since the first publications that introduced Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) as a means to conceptualize games teaching and learning. For over two decades various professionals have advocated for TGfU as a sound idea, which…

The aim of this paper is to show how information literacy can be conceptualised as a key learning process related to discipline and academic maturity, rather than as a generic skill. Results of a small-scale study including questionnaires and observation of student behaviour are reported and analysed in relation to Bruce's "seven faces of…

Four dimensions of pedagogical quality focusing on children's opportunities for learning and development in preschool are suggested. This article explores how they are constituted and how they can be used for evaluation to discern pedagogical quality as a whole and part of a whole and to understand how quality is experienced and valued from…

The topic of this article concerns how students make sense of categories of progressive inquiry made available to them through a discussion and inquiry type of software called Future Learning Environments 2 (FLE2). The idea behind tools of this kind is to induce approaches to school-work that build on the metaphor of learning as research. By…

Students are, increasingly, digital content producers, and participate extensively in evolving online social networks. The emergence of the former represents subtle changes in students' experience of images, audience, copyright, ownership of learning, and technology. Experiencing the latter places students in an awkward position in terms of…

A model of developmentally appropriate practice in helping teachers grow is described. The model derives from a consideration of the psychological processes by which adults learn, and our desire to teach adults by the same methods we hope they will use in teaching children. The model includes a sequence of six kinds of interactions that the…

Teacher Research Groups (TRGs) provide one means of creating learning communities among teachers with the express purpose of systematically examining practice and enriching teachers' knowledge about learning and teaching. These groups meet regularly, may be facilitated by a more experienced peer or university researcher, assist teachers with the…

The task of synthesizing descriptive data from the "root social sciences" to form a usable model for applied research is quite different from the task of employing, verbatim, the theoretical and methodological constructs of those same sciences. This study conceptualizes the instructional encoding conditions that potentially effect and/or affect…

The goal of this paper is to show how experience transcends subject-matter planning. Indeed, there is a paradox in planning authentic experiences; hence the word "quasi-authentic" in the title. Subject matters are defined here as disciplinary genres. They are integrated into a new framework for semiotic research into disciplinary…

This document contains four papers from a symposium on organization development and change. "The Effectiveness of Total Quality Management: A Response to the Critics" (Douglas H. Smith, Ralph G. Lewis) identifies four effectiveness principles: customer satisfaction, continuous improvement, speaking with facts, and respect for people. "Fast Cycle…

The ways male and female students communicate in computer-mediated distance education courses were examined through a comparison of the communication techniques used by 15 females and 4 males enrolled in a computer conferencing course that required students to share their thoughts regarding a weekly reading assignments and related discussion…

This paper proposes a theory that can account for differences between everyday and formal mathematics knowledge and a set of processes by which informal knowledge is transformed into formal mathematics. After an introduction, the paper is developed in five sections. The first section lays out the nature of informal, everyday mathematics knowledge.…

Interest is examined in relation to its role in the learning process. A broadly based model of learning is presented, and implications of the model for the educational context are considered. In the framework presented, learning involves the perception, interpretation, and storage of information about the environment under particular motivational…

Traditional methods of both first and second language teaching have commonly relied on simplification, restricting the range of language forms and functions to be learned and then practicing those forms to achieve mastery. These methods, however, fail to consider seriously the questions of how language develops in natural contexts, what language…

Theoretical and empirical work was conducted on the role of the "mental model," or how-it-works information, in learning to operate equipment. The original project was concerned with empirical and cognitive modeling studies of how people learn to operate equipment from the kind of information contained in technical documentation. The…