Shows how, among the cultures of the indigenous peoples of tropical South America, the human body offers a language and mechanism central to the process of production, elaboration, and transmission, of knowledge, skills, and emotions. Discusses recent anthropological debates and describes a new discipline known as "anthropology of the…

Contends that Westerners are accustomed to learning about the world through our senses of sight and hearing, and that "lower" senses--smell, taste, and touch--tend to be associated with "savagery" or sensualism. Provides a cross-cultural look at the Colombian Desana people who acquire knowledge through full-bodied experience…

Discusses the amount of money being spent to buy computers for classrooms and emphasizes the need for more money to be spent on teacher training to successfully integrate computers into the curriculum. Reviews state surveys on technology plans and teacher training and considers the effects of staff development on student achievement. (LRW)

This article tells the story of Darrell, a lively, intelligent boy who has some learning disabilities. Although his parents are educators and are highly committed to advocating for Darrell, for most of his elementary school years, they were unable to succeed in providing Darrell a mathematics education equal to his regular education peers.…

In this chapter, the authors aim to review recent, sociocultural studies of classroom-based research in science education in light of a sample of practice-based research within the field of science studies. They provide a framework for examining the discipline of science that can also be useful for assessing its impact on students. The framework…

In the new biology-learning curriculum for Israeli high schools, known as Biomind, students experience "open-inquiry." This paper describes a qualitative action research project that was performed in order to investigate the characteristics of the open inquiry learning process. Specifically, the research investigates this process in…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the Engagement, Exploration, Explanation, Extension, and Evaluation (5E) learning cycle, conceptual change texts, and traditional instructions on 8th grade students' understanding of photosynthesis and respiration in plants. Students' understanding of photosynthesis and respiration in…

Research reveals that in highly structured learning environments pedagogical agents can act as tools to direct students' learning processes by providing content or problem solving guidance. It has not yet been addressed whether pedagogical agents have a similar impact in more open learning environments that aim at fostering students' acquisition…

This study examined the mathematics experiences of talented children in an impoverished rural school district located in a coal-mining area of Appalachia. Using interview methods, the researchers explored the children's ideas about the nature of mathematics, their perceptions of the mathematics instruction they received at school, and their…

Simulation output analysis has received little attention comparing to modeling and programming in real-world simulation applications. This is further evidenced by our observation that students and beginners acquire neither adequate details of knowledge nor relevant experience of simulation output analysis in traditional classroom learning. With…

Extensive studies have been conducted on programming knowledge, instructional environments and effective pedagogies in order to improve the teaching and learning of computer programming. However, there have been few studies on the usefulness and effectiveness of using simulation. The aim of this paper is two-fold: to describe the design and…

This article reports the findings of a survey of 558 teachers in England. It describes how conceptual and empirical insights from the literature informed the construction of questionnaire items to provide answers to questions about the way in which teachers value different classroom assessment practices and how congruent with these values they…

This article deals with brain research. It discusses how a growing understanding of the way the brain functions offers new insights into the minds of students at all stages of development. Brain-based research deals with classroom-relevant concerns, such as sensory perception, attention, memory, and how emotions affect learning. The goals for…

The nature of interaction in higher education environments impacts not only end outcomes, but also the approach to learning itself. Using a quasi-experimental research design, this empirical study tests the impact of social and academic interaction on student approaches to learning. Findings demonstrate significant correlations between contextual…

Contemporary theories of learning postulate one or at most a small number of different learning mechanisms. However, people are capable of mastering a given task through qualitatively different learning paths such as learning by instruction and learning by doing. We hypothesize that the knowledge acquired through such alternative paths differs…