Based on the belief that teacher educators can no longer be satisfied to teach about whole language without teaching through whole language, this article presents five major premises of whole language and then describes several strategies by which this philosophy has been implemented in university classrooms. The premises are that learning happens…

Contemporary learning theory supports the use of writing as a cognitive tool to enhance retention and assist students to understand abstract mathematical concepts. Using writing activities in the intermediate grade and secondary classroom enhances the learning of mathematics and is a way of making mathematics more reachable to those students who…

This thesis addresses problems from two areas of theoretical computer science. The first area is that of computational learning theory, which is the study of the phenomenon of concept learning using formal mathematical models. The goal of computational learning theory is to investigate learning in a rigorous manner through the use of techniques…

This paper helps to clarify the role of empirical evidence in psychological and epistemological theories. Following Galileo's idealization, epistemological theories do not describe the behavior of individuals in the real world. It is only when the "impediments" of the real subjects are gradually removed by experimental manipulation that…

This paper describes a teacher preparation instructional unit on the "Structure of Knowledge" that was designed to help students learn to think like Jerome Bruner and David Ausubel rather than merely acquire knowledge about them, while simultaneously improving students' thinking skills. The unit used Sternberg's triarchic theory to…

Many educators look upon schools as the exclusive site at which meaningful learning can take place. Those educators would benefit from seeing the possibilities offered by non-school environments. This paper argues that the museum is a full-fledged educational institution, and focuses on how the museum may be seen as a site for the inquiries of…

This book proposes that action research can give higher education professional development a theoretical framework by integrating educational research and teaching in higher education. The book offers an alternative paradigm in higher education research and development and explains the differences between the traditional and alternative paradigms…

This monograph provides a conceptual and theoretical framework for the use of hypermedia presentations in the classroom, particularly in the science classroom. Traditional methods of presenting information are linear in nature but research has shown that learning rarely proceeds in a linear fashion. The omni-directional nature of hypermedia…

This paper begins by reviewing the results of research on the potential of adjunct questions for teaching both rote recall and intellectual skills, i.e., concept learning, problem solving, and rule learning. It is argued that greater understanding of what kinds of questions best support intellectual skills learning will promote effective…

An extensive literature review led to the formation of a framework for vocabulary instruction that can be used to analyze the relationship between knowledge of word meanings and comprehension and to suggest more effective means of vocabulary instruction. The framework posits two types of information students hold about words--definitional and…

This paper (1) presents observations about the major paradigms and assumptions that have historically shaped media research; (2) encapsulates the activities, thinking, and paradigms of the present; and (3) reports on a study in which 100 theoreticians and researchers were asked to respond to 50 hypothetical statements about media in the learning…

Reviews the literature from the three standpoints of learning theory, psycho-analysis, and cognitive developmental theory and suggests that investigations explore specific socialization practices that contribute to both personal integration and moral maturity. (Author/AM)

Describes an experiment in which physics students were assigned to groups according to Piaget's stages of cognitive development and members of each group were asked to solve an elementary mechanics problem. Analysis revealed that the majority of students, those who were not operating at a formal level of development, may have done more harm than…

Studies of the hierarchical attainment of conservation of physics concepts revealed significant differences with respect to age, sex, and grade level in a random sample of seventh and eighth grade students. Conservation of a quantity did not necessarily depend on the prior conservation of its constituent fundamental quantities. (MLH)

Second language learning in adults is compared to a child's acquisition of its native language in that learning is said to be governed by universal learning strategies rather than imitation. The strategy of simplification is discussed with examples from Indonesian/Malay. (Author/RM)