This paper describes the achievements of an innovative eight-year research program first introduced in Mizoguchi and Bourdeau (2000), which was aimed at building a theory-aware authoring system by using ontological engineering. To date, we have proposed OMNIBUS, an ontology that comprehensively covers different learning/instructional theories and…

Enthusiasts for new social software do not always acknowledge that belonging to e-learning communities depends upon complex and often unresolved identity issues for learners. Drawing on the author's previous research on belonging in social learning, the paper presents a theory of identity congruence in social learning and brings to the foreground…

Jean Piaget's research has indicated that people must do activities or operations in order to retain and order things in their minds. This document presents activities for the sensorimotor, preoperation, and concrete operation stages. The activities are designed for specific operations and can be carried out in classrooms or other appropriate…

The paper compares "standard" mathematics training with the normal human experience of "contextual learning." Contextual understanding permits children to learn various patterns of events and circumstances in their surroundings. The conclusion is that every child is a competent contextual learner, and functions very effectively learning language…

This book discusses both the philosophy of mathematics and of mathematics education. The first part is a critique of existing approaches and a new philosophy of mathematics. Chapters include: (1) "A Critique of Absolutist Philosophies of Mathematics," (2) "The Philosophy of Mathematics Reconceptualized," (3) "Social…

Richard Paul is one of the leading figures in the critical thinking movement. Paul defines critical thinking as disciplined, self-directed thinking that exemplifies the perfections of thinking appropriate to a particular mode or domain of thinking. This definition of critical thinking also takes into account the interests of diverse persons or…

This paper discusses self-assessment--i.e., the act of evaluating or monitoring one's own level of knowledge, performance, and understanding--in a metacognitive framework, taking into account the contexts in which self-assessment occurs. It begins with a brief review of metacognitive and social psychology theories that pertain to self-assessment.…

Written from a sociology of education perspective, this article seeks to answer four questions about teaching methods in music education: (1) to what extent music teachers view the formulation of their method of teaching as a type of content, rather than simply a strategy for the delivery of knowledge; (2) whether the content selected for schools…

For schools and classrooms to become places of achieving goals, educators and students must cooperate to further learning. Cooperative learning in education means overcoming the competition and individualism present in traditional educational models. This book is designed to help educators understand and implement cooperative learning. It includes…

This study examined the constructs of a study skill--highlighting--to determine whether the constructs for highlighting in a paper mode would be the same as highlighting in a computer mode. Constructs are defined as the underlying processes that are elicited in an experimental setting and that provide a basis for explaining the relations among the…

The classroom effects of five peer tutoring situations were compared with 130 female sophomores enrolled in a history course at a midwestern university. Students read a 1525-word article and were assigned to one of the following conditions: reading an assignment to take a test, reading as if the material were going to be taught to a tutee but not…

Implicitly repeating categories by presenting words not present in the original categorized list but logically members of previously studied categories significantly increased acquisition and retention relative to repeating category labels, repeating members of categories, and repeating neither labels nor members. The efficiency of repetition…

The author's theories concerning the learning of mathematical concepts are outlined. (SD)

A theory of language acquistion is proposed in outline which derives from a view of language as primarily a code for the communication of meaning intentions. (Editor)