University class size is a frequently debated topic among stakeholders given its relation to student achievement, teaching and learning, program evaluation, and education economics. However, the extant literature in both K-12 and higher education contexts regarding class size is equivocal, with some citing evidence of an adverse effect on student…

Cognitive neuroscience research is typically conducted in controlled laboratory environments and therefore its contribution to our understanding of learning in real-world environments is limited. In recent years, however, portable and wearable brain devices have become more readily available for classroom-based research. Complementing existing…

Current discourses of equity in teaching and learning are framed around calls for inclusion, grounded in the extension of a set of static rights for high-quality learning opportunities for all students. This essay presents a rightful presence framework to guide the study of teaching and learning in justice-oriented ways. This framework highlights…

Collaborative intellectual engagement is held in high regard in contemporary educational thought as a pedagogical practice of broad value to K-12 students. To what extent is this enthusiasm warranted? Is the practice uniformly productive, or does variability exist in the contexts in which collaboration is effective, the mechanisms involved, and…

There has been a recent upsurge of interest in exploring how choices of methods and timing of instruction affect the rate and persistence of learning. The authors review three lines of experimentation--all conducted using educationally relevant materials and time intervals--that call into question important aspects of common instructional…

This article describes elements of an approach to research and development called "design-based implementation research." The approach represents an expansion of design research, which typically focuses on classrooms, to include development and testing of innovations that foster alignment and coordination of supports for improving…

Although intellectual conflict may be an important instructional tool (because of its potential constructive outcomes), conflict is rarely structured in instructional situations (because of its potential destructive outcomes). Many educators may be apprehensive about instigating intellectual conflict among students because of the lack of…

Problems in trying to apply the laws of learning to educational situations derive both from the failure to take account of differences between humans and other animals, and from failure to take into account of important variables interacting with independent variables in natural educational settings. (Author/JM)

Studies comparing the external characteristics of instructional methods have obscured the most important variable which accounts for learning from instruction: macroprocesses, or the frequency and intensity with which students cognitively process instructional input. Further research on macroprocesses may be a meeting point between the psychology…

Reports on attempts to find alternative methods of group instruction. Discusses the use of mastery learning techniques and the need to improve the students' learning processes, the curriculum and instructional materials, and the home environmental support of the students' school learning. (CMG)

Conventional schooling too often ignores the influence of school culture on what is learned in school. Knowledge is situated, being in part a product of the activity, context, and culture in which it is developed and used; this is known as cognitive apprenticeship. Implications for understanding learning and teaching are discussed. (Author/BJV)

Presents a view of the interplay among the various factors of personal experience, language, and socialization in the process of learning science in classrooms. Discusses the problematic relations among scientific knowledge, the learning of science, and pedagogy. (GLR)