This commentary on a paper by L. Heshusius (EC 600 327) describes key ideas of direct instruction and reflects on the original paper from a perspective that incorporates the realities of classrooms. The commentary calls for serious, systematic inquiry that explores instructional environments for special education students using constructs from…

In response to a paper by L. Heshusius (EC 600 327), this article clarifies fundamental concepts of curriculum-based assessment and discusses specific points of misrepresentation. The article concludes that Heshusius has created a narrow reductionistic view of reality instead of a dynamic evolving approach to assessment, curriculum, and…

Four salient constructs in a contemporary motor learning theory were tested for validity using dental students' verbal self-reporting. Students were videotaped completing a preparation, then interviewed to stimulate recall of mental processes during the preparation. Results support application of the theory to dentistry and have implications for…

The ability of 10 9-month-old infants with Down's syndrome to acquire a simple contingency was assessed. Unlike a group of nondisabled infants, the Down's syndrome infants did not, in general, learn the contingency. Results are related to the possibility of a decline in conditionability with age and a relationship between conditionability and…

Considers radical constructivism in light of poststructuralism and hermeneutic phenomenology and shows how this forces a reassertion of the teacher's role in the student's constructing of mathematical knowledge. (48 references) (Author/MKR)

An associative model of serial learning is described based on the assumption that the effective stimulus for a serial-list item is generated by adaptation-level coding of the item's ordinal position. How the model can generate predictions of aspects of serial-learning data is illustrated. (SLD)

Twenty-five children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 25 children with normal language (NL) were presented with novel vocabulary and bound-morpheme learning tasks. SLI children had significantly lower vocabulary learning levels and less ability to generalize bound morphemes than NL children. Results support the storage/access but not…

Discusses the idea of expertise as it relates to education and to situated learning based on previous articles and responses. Highlights include apprenticeship and the acquisition of expertise; competence versus expertise; teachers' pedagogical content knowledge; instructional design and traditional schooling; functionalism; and alternatives to…

Discusses potentials of situated learning in response to criticism of a previous article. Topics addressed include educational technology; education and political issues, including educational goals and literacy; learning theories; visuality and other modes of knowledge acquisition; cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains of learning; and…

Five principles emerging from cognitive science research are as follows: (1) help students organize their knowledge with concept mapping; (2) build on what students already know; (3) facilitate information processing; (4) facilitate deep thinking; and (5) make thinking processes explicit. (SK)

Areas of concern for matching adult readers and programs are theoretical orientation (meaning based, code based, or interactive); programing factors (reading assessment, goal formation, affective factors, negative schooling attitudes, student interests, reading interpretations); and methodologies (phonics, whole word, neuro-impress, repeated…

Describes a study that examined preservice teacher success in acquiring and applying principles of learning and instructional design. Tests that measured attainment of the essentials of learning objectives and attainment of competency-based instruction (CBI) objectives are described, and lesson planning performance is examined. (24 references)…

This article reviews Piagetian theory on formal operational thought, the relationship of psychometric intelligence and formal operational thought, the development of formal operational thought in gifted children, problems encountered with Piagetian theory and attempts to modify it, and implications of the post-Piagetian perspective for education…

This introduction to four papers, which discuss cognitive strategy research with secondary students who have learning disabilities, outlines Edwin Ellis's Integrated Strategy Instruction model for helping students learn content in a strategic manner, identifies model aspects requiring revision, and notes the model's theoretical underpinnings and…

Provides the transcript of an interview with Dr. Lev Landa that addressed issues related to his algorithmico-heuristic theories of learning and instruction, called Landamatics. Highlights include teaching thinking versus knowledge; algorithms; instructional design; improving training and performance in industry, business, and government;…