Conventional approaches to teaching and learning perpetrate lies about the nature of knowledge, self-worth, and growth. Working with Foxfire and authentic assessment can offer teachers an opportunity to discover emancipating truths. These approaches demonstrate the value of students' growth in their own competence and in their self-direction. The…

This paper outlines work in progress at the University of Edinburgh on the construction of a small World Wide Web-based interactive learning environment (EPIC) developed for the teaching of high performance computing. The paper begins by outlining work done in cognitive science on how people make use of structure in physical environments. Within…

Instructional implications of cognitive development theory are discussed, and it is proposed that the current theoretical framework offers a view of development that, applied in instructional contexts, leads to a reconceptualization of the traditional notion of developmental curricula. Piaget's theory offered a framework for how children should be…

This paper presents a framework utilized in two research projects for mathematics teacher learning based on what is understood about students' mathematics learning. The framework is grounded in a social constuctivist perspective and builds on Karplus' Learning Cycle. A framework for mathematics education identifies a learning cycle that progresses…

This paper (1) examines correlations of pre- and post-course scores on the Theoretical Orientation to Reading Profile with scores on the Gregorc Style Delineator; (2) augments these correlations with qualitative data from journals and interviews; and (3) proposes that, given this data, the supervisory support structures needed for pre- and…

In this study Dutch subjects with four different levels of expertise (24 second-year, 24 fourth-year, 24 sixth-year medical students, and 24 internists with at least 4 years of experience) studied, diagnosed, and explained four clinical cases. Diagnostic accuracy increased with the increasing level of expertise. The number of concepts used and the…

External representations have a great impact on what and how students learn. One key manner in which environments can operate upon novices' knowledge is through helping them ground their problem solving in an understanding of the situation embodied by the problem. In this paper, students' difficulties in microeconomics problem solving were…

This paper examines the teacher educator's role in assisting prospective teachers to grasp what it means to transform knowledge so that content and pedagogy intersect. Knowledge is not certain nor is its authority held in the text or the teacher's lesson plans. If students perceive knowledge to be open-ended, requiring vital curiosity, they will…

This book is the result of the accumulated research of five researchers from the United States and Australia on a school in Coastal Australia. The research team shared a constructivist epistemology and interpreted the qualitative and quantitative data collected over a 10-week period in two classrooms from that perspective. Each chapter discusses…

The educational philosophy, goals, and graduate program of the Department of Educational Leadership at Wright State University are described in this paper. The department offers two masters degrees, called respectively the Teacher Leader degree and the Educational Leadership degree. Both degrees are composed of seven developmental strands:…

Two studies were conducted to compare the advance organizer and concept elaboration models of instruction with a task analysis approach. It was hypothesized that the concept elaboration group would achieve significantly higher than either the advance organizer group or the task analysis group on concept learning and principle learning. A pilot…

A study by James E. Grunig and his students at the University of Maryland tested a refined version of Grunig's situational theory of communication behavior (1968) by surveying the attitudes of the public regarding Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). In preparation for the study, 20 years of research conducted by Grunig and his students was…

This paper evaluates the strengths and limitations of a computer tutor designed to help students understand physics concepts. The tutor uses a teaching strategy called "bridging analogies" that previous research has demonstrated to be successful in one-to-one tutoring. The strategy is designed to remedy misconceptions by appealing to existing…

It is often both possible and valuable for a teacher to be a researcher in his or her own classroom. This paper describes the nature of cognitive research and focuses on two areas of research that may be of special interest to classroom physics teachers. The first area refers to misconceptions that students bring with them to their physics…

An introduction by Barbara S. Plake emphasizes that this volume investigates social and technical influences on test development and usage. Essential preliminary information on how tests can be used and may be interpreted is presented. Under the heading "Social and Technical Influences" are: (1) "Struggles and Possibilities: The Use…