Pupil observation and educator?pupil discourse have recognised relevance within early years practitioners' repertoires, with long traditions of practice in England and elsewhere. Observation is now enshrined within the Foundation Stage Curriculum for 3?5 year-olds (England) (soon to become part of the Early Years Foundation Stage for Birth?5) and…

The aim of the study was to acquire a deeper understanding of how small children learn an instrument in the presence of their parents. It is qualitative in nature and concerned six pre-school children (five years old) who were learning the violin together and where their parents were present at the lessons. All the children's homes were visited…

This research investigated expertise development among instructional designers by tracking novice designers' unfolding perceptions of instructional design (ID), design-related self-perceptions, and other individual differences. It examined development toward ID expertise from multiple aspects: processes, product, and cognition, through a case…

Learning strategy preferences depend upon circulating estrogen levels, with enhanced hippocampus-sensitive place learning coinciding with elevated estrogen levels. The effects of estrogen on strategy may be mediated by fluctuations in GABAergic function, given that inhibitory tone in the hippocampus is low when estrogen is high. We investigated…

Kanji are a component of the Japanese writing system that originated from Chinese characters. There are about ten thousand kanji in use in Japanese literature, but knowledge of only the 2000 most frequently occurring of these is needed to be functionally literate in Japanese. The present study, therefore, aimed to address two questions: (1) What…

This article focuses on some of the key issues that need to be addressed by 2010 if MLPS in England is going to work. The aims of MLPS need defining as educational, not instrumental; the KS1/2 experience has to be enjoyable and rewarding: an apprenticeship in learning how to learn a language, providing the tools for later learning and raising…

Normal practice in course and text book construction is to provide learners with pre-selected material chosen by the authors to illustrate a pre-determined grammar, content or teaching syllabus. This paper will discuss the effect of the reversal of this process at a pilot workshop session in which learners themselves were invited to select the…

The notion of learning styles, and the multiple intelligence theory from which some of this derives, has come to be one of the dominant themes in the discourse on learning and teaching. This article argues that much of the language associated with this recent educational phenomenon is misleading for teachers. The author argues that instead of…

In this paper, some aspects of French mathematical education theory concerning "problem situations" are taken into account. In this theoretical framework, the choice of problem situations is fundamental in order to allow pupils to make hypotheses, to mobilize their knowledge, to argue, and finally, to construct new knowledge. Certain…

This article distinguishes among classroom experiences based on doing something to students (emphasis on teaching), doing something with students (emphasis on teaching and learning), and being with students (emphasis on learning). Being moments and being classes result from states of mind rather than pedagogical techniques. Thus, redefinitions are…

The authors investigated in this study the effects of two electronic notes conditions (complete vs. partial) and two testing conditions (immediate vs. delayed) on three types of tests (fact, structure, and application). A 2 x 2 factorial multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) yielded no significant main effects for notes conditions on the fact…

The dual purpose of this paper is to put forward the problem of goal orientation in mathematics education in general and to consider a specific goal that is not seen as central in traditional teaching practice. The goal orientation approach in education aims to construct the teaching process considering the goals of the students, i.e. the expected…

This study investigated how students' level of motivation and use of specific cognitive and self-regulatory strategies changed over time, and how these motivational and cognitive components in turn predicted students' course performance in chemistry. Participants were 458 students enrolled in introductory college chemistry classes. Participants'…

Various research studies have asserted the significance of school leadership on student learning. Although the research-based knowledge about principalship continues to grow, there is a paucity of practical information about how to perform the essential tasks. How do principals develop and then act upon a deep understanding of supporting teachers?…

In an effort to individualize instruction and improve the effectiveness of instructor-learner transactions, education and instructional research has addressed a wide assortment of learner variables and assessed their relationships to instructional methods and environments. Adult education has recently seen the development by Conti and Kolody of a…