The purpose of this fastback is to help teachers find out how children acquire a second language and explore the linguistic foundations on which sound English as a Second Language (ESL) curricula can be developed. It is intended for the regular classroom teacher, not the ESL specialist. Central findings in research on second language learning…

Researchers at the Institute for Information Processing and Computer Supported New Media (IICM) at Graz University of Technology, Austria, are currently developing GENTLE, an electronic lecturing system combined with a digital lecture library, for teachers and students. The system contains collections of lessons, synchronous and asynchronous…

This study examined the contribution of classroom learning environment and teaching and learning effectiveness variables to student learning and learning efficacy in higher education settings. It attempted to identify classroom environment characteristics that differentiate high- and low- academic-efficacy student groups and the teaching and…

This document contains three papers from a symposium on individual learning issues in human resource development (HRD). "Bringing Cross-Cultural Sensitivity to Human Resource Development: An Example from the Classroom" (Robert L. Dilworth) reports on a classroom-based case study in curriculum design for global HRD that emphasizes the importance of…

This report describes and evaluates the TAMARACK integrated curriculum package implemented in a high school classroom in Ontario (Canada). The program integrates environmental science, physical education, and English through experiential instruction. The highlights of the program were producing a magazine of oral history, wilderness trips in…

Research has demonstrated that people have difficulties recognizing ratio relationships involving multiplication. This paper is divided into four sections. The first section describes a study that was part of the three-year study of the mathematical and pedagogical development of prospective elementary teachers. The classroom teaching experiment…

This study was designed to determine students' abilities and difficulties in articulating the relationship between function and derivative. High-school students were presented 15 problems during two 75-minute interviews in which they were asked to construct functions experimentally in three different contexts: motion, fluids, and number-change. In…

This review explores the factors of cognitive processing, style, and metacognitive organization as they contribute to academic success. Specific discussions consider aspects of short- and long-term memory, including how these affect learning and academic performance, and the keys to attaining long-term memory capability by involving redundancy,…

Contract learning is an alternative way of structuring a learning experience. Instead of specifying how a body of content will be transmitted (content plan), it specifies how a body of content will be acquired by the learner (process plan). Students identify problems or issues that are real for them and relevant to the course at hand, state…

This book offers a new paradigm for teaching--one that gives equal weight to both the practical and the moral dimensions of the craft. Contributions from educators around the world show how to combine effective and responsible teaching so that students come away with not just skills and knowledge but values and sensibilities as well. The volume…

This paper traces the development of graded and non-graded classrooms in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries and describes the implementation of multiage classrooms at an elementary school in Hopedale, Massachusetts. After defining what is meant by multiage classrooms, the paper discusses the role of Horace Mann, who was then a…

In problem-based learning, an instrument is needed to measure students' actual learning activities. Mapping the domain of learning activities undertaken by students and improving problems is especially important in a problem-based curriculum because students choose their own learning objectives. Such an instrument, the Topic Evaluation…

This four-part guide is designed to help community college instructors understand and respond to individual differences in their students. First, the preface lays out a framework for an in-depth examination of individual learning differences by posing the following questions: (1) Is learning a single function or a composite of different types of…

The relationship between psychology and the arts, and the role of the arts in the educational process are explored. The proposition put forth argues that the sensory system is a primary resource in cognitive life. The relationship of intuition to intellect, of how the whole and its constituent qualities relate, also is explored. The forms of…

This handbook may serve as a guide in helping teachers to identify children with learning disabilities. Hypothetical cases are presented, giving specific examples of academic and behavioral problems which may be caused by such learning disabilities as visual perceptual disorders, auditory perceptual disorders, motor disorders, orientation…