Software-engineering education programs are intended to prepare students for a field that involves rapidly changing conditions and expectations. Thus, there is always a danger that the skills and the knowledge provided may soon become obsolete. This paper describes results and draws on experiences from the implementation of a computer…

The Educational Testing Service (ETS) created the College Level Examination Program (CLEP) in 1965 and over the years it has become a staple of American higher education. In order to better understand the ramifications of the CLEP program, this article provides a brief history of CLEP and reexamines some of the findings of earlier research. The…

Understanding that learning must be relevant and purposeful to be effective and engaging, Wilhelm emphasizes the value of teaching students "how to participate in meaningful activity in ways that make them increasingly expert in creating culture and . . . cultural meanings." He offers bullet points that suggest starting with students' experiences,…

Listening and reading comprehension can be assessed by analyzing children's visual, verbal, and written representations of their understandings. "Talking Drawings" (McConnell, S. (1993). Talking drawings: A strategy for assisting learners. "Journal of Reading", 36(4), 260-269 is one strategy that enables children to combine…

Previously, we proposed a model of student reasoning which combines the roles of representation, analogy, and layering of meaning--analogical scaffolding [Podolefsky and Finkelstein, Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 3, 010109 (2007)]. The present empirical studies build on this model to examine its utility and demonstrate the vital intertwining of…

This paper reports on an interpretive study of block play in a class of 16 kindergartners. Over the course of a school year 16 hours of videotape of the children's block play was recorded and analyzed. A typology of block play with four domains of block construction, social interaction, negotiation, and scheme development is explained and…

An analysis of the learning process that focuses on the role of elaboration and students' prior knowledge is presented. Learning from instruction is distinguished from learning and instruction, and a series of learning functions are identified. (TJH)

Analyzes the role of students' prior knowledge in their emerging understanding of the mole. The research question this study seeks to answer is what knowledge, if any, do student have regarding the mole and what prior knowledge do they access when presented problems regarding the nature of the mole. Data collection focuses on student knowledge…

Seven- and ten-year-olds listened to taped stories. In one version, familiar television characters were described as having attributes incongruous with those the children knew from television. Three weeks later, children's recall of the stories indicated considerable shifts in memory toward their preexperimental knowledge of the TV characters.…

Discusses information overload and examines several ways in which actual and potential overload affects research choices for the solo researcher in interdisciplinary areas. Topics include information overload and teamwork; entry barriers to certain specialties, including necessary background knowledge; and information utilization and knowledge…

Five experiments investigated children's understanding that expectations based on prior experience may influence a person's interpretation of ambiguous visual information. Results suggest that understanding of interpretation begins at approximately six years of age. (HTH)

Addresses the problem of finding a quick, easy, and effective way to teach necessary background knowledge for new topics so teachers can build the specific schema children will need to comprehend the text they read. Describes a mural lesson as an organized way for teachers to talk about and use pictures to provide students with information that…

Examined influence of newly acquired information on 5- to 7-year-olds' memory and general representation of a personally experienced novel event. Found that advance information specific to the event led to better recall and better integration of the experience into a general event representation both soon after the event and 4 months later.…

Examines the assumption that recognition of prior learning (RPL) is an undemanding way of receiving credit in higher education, and identifies the demands of a portfolio development approach in RPL. (EV)

Examines the ability of children to evaluate their comprehension of text using lexical, external, and internal consistency standards. Finds that children more often use lexical and external consistency than internal consistency and that the results of verbal report measures are inconsistent with performance measures. (RS)