Research summarized here demonstrates how similarity thinking can be used in training programs to help ethnic minority children acquire basic skills. Current achievements are often attenuated by poor language skills, especially when English is not the first language of the child. Similarity thinking assesses the child's ability to learn without…

This issue of the journal includes these papers on contrastive linguistics: "Violations of Frege's Principle and Their Significance for Contrastive Semantics" (Dafydd Gibbon); "Writing the Contrastive Grammar of English and Dutch. The Treatment of Modal Notions" (Flor Aarts and Herman Wekker); "The Theory and Methodology…

A prescriptive theory for learning which delivers prescriptions for designing prototypes of instructional materials with different knowledge structures, the Elaboration Theory of Instruction (ETI) is based on important principles and theories of learning and instruction. This paper reports three experiments which tested ETI. The first experiment…

Four similarities between reading and writing and their corresponding instructional significance are examined in this literature review. Each of the four reviewed topics is prefaced by general instructional suggestions based on research cited in the review. Topics and suggestions are as follows: (1) linguistic--whenever possible, the processes of…

Suggestions for instructional improvement are offered for science teachers in this compilation of research summaries on specific areas of science education. This series includes the articles: (1) "Improving Students' Understanding of the Nature of Science" (discussing the relationship between teachers and students conceptions of science…

Although ability partly explains why some students are eager to learn in school whereas others are disinterested, motivation is another significant factor. This newsletter discusses factors that affect students' motivation to learn, considers techniques that can increase motivation, and identifies schools that have developed activities to enhance…

Students of reasoning have long tried to understand how people revise systems of beliefs. This paper maintains that people often change their beliefs in ways driven by considerations of explanatory coherence. In this report, a computational model is described of how experimental subjects revise their naive beliefs about physical motion. First,…

Andragogy has been posited as a theory of adult learning that provides a unifying concept for the practice of adult education. Because the assumptions of andragogy only indirectly adduce the needs of society and do not purport to accommodate the proprietary interests of institutions at all, it would seem that andragogy would not be appropriate as…

This paper proposed to apply the perspective of constructivism to the classroom setting. Secondary science teachers and university personnel jointly developed and experimented with a variety of constructivist teaching strategies. Data were collected in the form of teacher anecdotes, audio and videotapes of lessons and student interviews, teacher…

This research attempts to diagnose the skills required for successful spatial performance in order to provide a theoretical foundation for military training in such tasks as map reading, surveying, and navigation. It is known that successful performance on spatial tasks depends on task requirements (e.g., requisite knowledge, alternative paths to…

In analyzing the issue of the extent to which speaking a nonstandard dialect of English affects a child's ability to learn to read, this paper reviews linguistic and reading research from the 1960s to the present and notes how that research has changed and developed. Based on this research, the paper argues that (1) there is no direct causal…

Information transfer techniques in the teaching of reading and listening in foreign language and English as a second language classrooms are discussed. Students may be presented with a written or spoken text and provided incomplete visual stimuli to be completed with information drawn from the text. The idea is that the learners are helped in…

This paper reports a six month intervention program in two ninth grade science classes and one eleventh grade human biology class. One teacher, one researcher, and 64 students participated in this action research to improve student learning and attitude through training in metacognition. The researcher was a participant observer, who introduced…

The reflections and theses on preschool children's literacy development presented in this book are the result of an experimental project carried out in Buenos Aires from 1974 to 1976. Chapter 1 discusses the educational situation in Latin America, traditional methods of reading instruction, contemporary psycholinguistics, the pertinence of…

This paper reports on developments in teaching and learning for first year employment relations students at the University of Wollongong based on creating conditions of learning informed by Vygotsky's "zone of proximal development" theory. Essentially, this meant emphasising collaborative learning (group work) in the lecture theatre and…