Comparison of 224 Pennsylvania secondary agricultural education students with a national sample showed that (1) the Pennsylvania students' cognitive skills were less developed; (2) their preferred responses to information were auditory and emotive; (3) small group and hands-on were preferred environments; and (4) they were less likely to prefer…

As dropout and student disengagement rates reach alarmingly high levels, learning styles theory offers one way to expand teaching methods and curricula to reach more students. Although accommodating individual differences is appealing, nagging doubts and murky research results (detailed in a sidebar) persist. Another sidebar explores culture/style…

Uses descriptive text, diagrams, and specific assignments to discuss the different learning modalities of students. Equipped with this knowledge and the power of instructional diversity, the joy of learning and teaching can be regained by simply transforming materials currently used in the classroom into materials that best fit a student's…

Effective learning requires (1) compatibility of teaching methods and students' learning strategies and (2) consideration of individual ways of dealing with the learning environment. Teaching strategies should generate constructive friction between the learner and the learning environment. (SK)

Time perception performance was systematically investigated in adolescents with and without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Specifically, the effects of manipulating modality (auditory and visual) and length of duration (200 and 1000 ms) were examined. Forty-six adolescents with ADHD and 44 controls were administered four duration…

Total Physical Response (TPR), developed by James Asher, is defined as a teaching technique whereby a learner responds to language input with body motions. Performing a chant or the game "Robot" is an example of a TPR activity, where the teacher commands her robots to do some task in the classroom. Acting out stories and giving imperative commands…

Computer-assisted teaching and assessment has become a regular feature across many areas of the curriculum in higher education courses around the world in recent years. This development has resulted in the "digital divide" between disabled students and their nondisabled peers regarding their participation in computer-assisted courses. However,…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to explore the contribution that an information literacy approach to the empirical study of workplace learning can make to how people understand and conceptualise workplace learning. Design/methodology/approach: Three cohorts of fire-fighters working in two regional locations in NSW, Australia were…

This paper examines a model of individual ways of learning and its implications for mathematics teaching. Topics discussed include: alternative ways that students use to represent mathematical ideas, management or control mechanisms, related models of learning preferences, ways in which students relate and manipulate ideas, and implications of…

The effects upon initial acquisition, transfer, and retention of mode and sequence of stimulus presentation in self-instructional elementary multiplication lesson sequences were studied with first, second, and third grade students. (Author/CS)

This study explored how, and what type of, procedural instructions influence a trade-off between planning and performance. There is a trade-off if longer planning time shortens performance time, improves performance efficiency, and improves accuracy. The relative effectiveness of nine combinations of illustrated and written instructions for an…

A clinical psychologist describes an approach she uses to assess learning disabled students. She explains that brain function is analyzed through a sequence of tasks charting visual and auditory discrimination, perception, memory, organization, integration, and output. An example is cited in which an 11 year old child with traumatic brain injury…

Teaching approaches for adult English as second language students with little previous formal education or native language literacy cannot rely on the traditional written materials. For students who cannot be reached through the written word, approaches must be devised that engage other channels of perceptions. Classroom activities are suggested…

The class of media characteristics, which is generic to them and which may be of potentially great relevance to learning, is the way in which media select, highlight, structure, and present information, i.e., their "languages" or symbol systems. How, if at all, and why do symbol systems, in general, differentially relate to cognition and learning?…