The present study examined factors that influence the process of learning to read in a second language. The Hebrew reading comprehension skills of 68 Russian-speaking children (mean age 7 years 6 months) were screened at the start of Grade 2. From this sample, 40 participants were selected: 20 successful learners and 20 unsuccessful learners.…

Problem-based approaches to learning have a long history of advocating experience-based education. Psychological research and theory suggests that by having students learn through the experience of solving problems, they can learn both content and thinking strategies. Problem-based learning (PBL) is an instructional method in which students learn…

Neurologist and middle school teacher Willis, frustrated by mandates handed down by "non-experts" who didn't know what she knew about how the brain works, developed strategies to rekindle the spark of learning and escape the rote nature of teaching to the test. By encouraging practice to create an accessible neural circuit, finding ways…

The present learning discourse and terms such as "learning in practice", "situated learning", "project and problem based learning" are like variations on a recurrent theme: learning by doing--the striking maxims of progressivism. The newest reforms confirm that the maxim is still alive as a standpoint with…

At the heart of any successful cross-cultural knowledge transfer effort lies an individual or group of individuals with the skills to manage a complex, ambiguous and often stressful process. The ability to manage the knowledge transfer process depends as much on learning in real time as it does on rational planning. Yet, few approaches to…

Informal learning's roots emerged from educational philosophers John Dewey, Kurt Lewin and Mary Parker Follett to theorists Malcolm Knowles and other successive researchers. This paper explores the background and definitions of informal learning and applications to the global workplace. Informal learning's challenges are applied to developing…

There are many questions to be asked about the pedagogical practice of questioning. Questions provide insight into what students at any age or grade level already know about a topic, which provides a beginning point for teaching. Questions reveal misconceptions and misunderstandings that must be addressed for teachers to move student thinking…

The inspiration for this paper was a retreat in which education students and professors spent a weekend at a forest preserve, conducting biodiversity studies. Our writing describes the power of our retreat as a scientific, social and pedagogical learning experience. The three authors present our written reflections individually, prefaced by a…

Active participation in the process of learning rather than transmission of information is prominent in modern higher education contexts. In alignment with this trend, traditional modes of assessment, based on the "transmission model", are increasingly replaced or supplemented by more authentic forms of assessment. Authentic assessment "measures"…

This study deals with the demand of a task. A theoretical background shows the difficulty of applying the idea of demand (as established in the literature) to the data. This has been confirmed in the preliminary study of this paper, which deals with the analysis of university examinations. Some factors that affect the demand of a task have been…

In the literature, learners' cognitive development is mainly discussed with respect to changes in learners' content-dependent knowledge (conceptual change or growth). Additional dimensions of time and complexity may also be taken into account to describe cognitive processes in at least three dimensions. We discuss these three dimensions of…

Changing conditions of academic and scientific labour markets, blurring boundaries between public and private and between basic and applied research, and the growing European dimension to scientific careers challenge the conceptual thinking about the research training function of the university. The paper explores these changes and addresses their…

Despite improvements in educational indicators, such as enrolment, significant challenges remain with regard to the delivery of quality education in developing countries, particularly in rural and remote regions. In the attempt to find viable solutions to these challenges, much hope has been placed in new information and communication technologies…

From a constructivist point of view, the importance of MUDs (Multiple User Dungeons) in education is justified based on their community-forming, learning, and role-playing functions. The authors propose a typology for educational MUDs and discuss their individual instructional approaches in order to measure MUD potential in ten-os of…

The changes in the statutory science curriculum specification for all students aged 14-15 in England and Wales in 2006 herald a shift in how curriculum content is organized, and the purposes for science learning. In a curriculum for scientific literacy the selection of social situations and scientific controversies determines the knowledge that is…