People behave as if they know the structure of their environment. Because people rarely study that structure explicitly, several theorists have postulated an implicit learning system that abstracts that structure automatically. An alternative view is that people respond to local structure that derives from global structure. Measures are developed…

Based on a purposive sample of 15 second-year chemical engineering students, this study investigates students' conceptions of evaporation, condensation and vapour pressure. During individual interviews the students were questioned on three tasks that had been designed around these topics. Qualitative analysis of student responses showed a range of…

This contribution presents a tool elaborated from a theoretical framework linking epistemological, learning and didactical hypotheses. This framework lead to design teaching sequences from a socio-constructivist perspective, and is based on the role of models in physics or chemistry, and on the role of students' initial knowledge in learning…

This article explores the concept of vertical equity in light of school reform efforts aimed at increasing academic outcomes for all students. Vertical equity, or the idea that students who bring certain educational needs to the classroom require additional resources to address those needs within the educational process, is useful as a way to…

Using WebQuests for inquiry-based learning represents a higher-order use of technology requiring students to exercise information seeking, analyzing, and synthesizing strategies. This research was designed to obtain a better understanding of how to enhance the pedagogical effectiveness of WebQuests and of how students interact with the various…

Presents an exercise in which students are required to develop assessment criteria for an introductory sociology class. Notes that students respond positively to being included in the class syllabus design. Describes some logistical concerns and pedagogical constraints of the exercise implementation. (Author/KDR)

The development of staff in any organization in order to attain quality results is a sine qua non. The human resource of any organization, including schools and colleges is central to its effectiveness. What matters is the model that is used to enable the development of staff, in this case the development of teachers in secondary schools. This…

Over the last two decades the traditional conception of intelligence and other mental powers as stable individual assets has been challenged by approaches in psychology emphasising context and "situated cognition". This paper argues that the debate should not be seen as an empirical dispute, and relates it to discussions in philosophy of mind…

The image of the composer as a lone seeker of creative inspiration is embedded in popular views of the creative artist. This isolationist view ignores the "thought communities" on which composers draw in their development as musicians, composers and teachers, the relationships that hold between composer-teacher and student-composer, and the role…

This article addresses the question of how science learning can be improved. It recognizes that, while learners themselves are responsible for their own learning, the quality of this learning is greatly influenced when appropriate resources are available to learners. These resources are provided through a partnership between teachers and learners.…

With knowledge management as the strategic intent and learning to learn as the strategic weapon, the current management focus is on how to leverage knowledge faster and better than competitors. Research demonstrates that it is the cultural mindset of the people in the organisation that primarily defines success in knowledge intensive…

To many in the fields of organizational learning (OL) and knowledge management (KM), the relationship between the two is something of a small mystery. The authors are practitioners coming from the KM side, who in the course of their work developed a process framework to delimit the scope of KM. They believe this framework also provides a context…

Effective project managers are required to have both "hard" technical skills to help control the iron triangle of time, cost and functional scope as well as relationship management skills to work effectively with people and get the best out of them. This paper argues that project managers also need a third skill: we refer to it as tapping into the…

Purpose: With the decline of some well-established firms, the diminishing competitive power of many companies in an increasingly globalized market and the need for organizational renewal and transformation, interest in organizational learning has grown. Senior managers in many organizations are convinced of the importance of improving learning in…

Purpose: This article seeks to propose that the success of an organization's knowledge-sharing strategy and the magnitude of its strategic capital are critically dependent on its having the capability to visualize relationship-networks among its employees, and means to identify and leverage, as appropriate, patterns of positive or negative…