Emphasizing factual knowledge undermines educators' attempts to engage students in meaningful activities. Students involved in process work are more deeply engaged, retain more, and perform better on achievement measures. Teaching methodology, types of knowledge, and school structure are intertwined. Methodology drives structure, and structure…

Discusses four schools of thought in cultural psychology: (1) the "mind and culture" school, which treated culture and cognition as separate; (2) the "mind in culture" school, which sees cognition and culture as interacting in practices; (3) the "culture in mind" school, which sees cultural categories as intrinsic to…

Comments on Lucariello's analysis, in this issue, of the development of cultural psychology, arguing that each of the "new approaches" that Lucariello identifies can be seen as an "old approach" that offered slightly different solutions to how psychology might deal more adequately with the cultural constitution of human nature. (MDM)

Reviews Karmiloff-Smith's "Beyond Modularity," suggesting that her work highlights phenomena that seem counter intuitive when regarded from current developmental frameworks, and advocates that understanding them requires more complex perspectives than can be supported by either extreme nativist or domain-general models of cognitive…

Reviewing is an important component of adventure education that involves reflecting, describing, analyzing, and communicating what has been experienced. Reviewing adds value to the adventure experience for participants and provides information the leader can use to evaluate and revise the program. (KS)

Relates the process of tutoring a gifted high school student. Asserts that his problems are not unique: bright students often have the same difficulty learning from expository text as average or below average students, and they can be as disorganized as everyone else. Suggests that high schools should offer instruction in content area reading.…

Students in various curricular domains, including science, mathematics, and social studies, may be superficially exposed to vast amounts of material resulting from overstuffed textbooks and an overemphasis on elaboration, interference, and practice. Some elaborations provided by teachers and textbooks may hinder the realization of key educational…

Reviews some of the benefits of the whole-language philosophy. Discusses the importance of systematic direct instruction, defining it and presenting arguments for including it in the classroom. Urges building bridges between whole-language and more traditional approaches. (PRA)

Examines verb learning in children in their second year of life learning verbs in various pragmatic contexts. Results are discussed in terms of the different learning processes involved in acquiring nouns and verbs and in terms of a social-pragmatic view of language acquisition. (34 references) (GLR)

Investigates how and when novice employees (who are also seniors at a cooperative engineering college) learn to write like engineers. Finds that students perceive abstract rules and training as least useful and view the embodied experience of models and interaction with experts as most productive, particularly when combined with practice and…

Suggests that the study reported in this monograph indicates that the bias toward verbal instead of nonverbal interaction should give way, and avoids the tendency to dichotomize outcomes. Also suggests that scholars who study older children's learning should attend to nonverbal acts, focus on responsibility in learning, and emphasize attention to…

This response to criticism of a previous article discusses the ways in which learners exist in and move through communities and how changing locations affect learning processes. Topics addressed include prior knowledge; practice-based, situated learning; political philosophy; learning as a social practice; and implications for the design of…

Distinguishes two types of learning processes: (1) learning from regularity--a linear model of problem, process, and product; and (2) learning from irregularity--adaptation to changing circumstances. Argues that these approaches lack an ethical or political dimension and advocates learning from responsibility or social commitment. (SK)

Describes four essay assignments in a sequence on experts that deal with sharing expertise, defining expertise, interviewing an expert, and seeing teachers as experts. Asserts that these assignments result in writing that is no longer the recapitulation of information received from experts but is communication notable for the quality of its…

At a Florida elementary school, the principal and teachers are piloting a curriculum of core knowledge developed over a four-year period by E.D. Hirsch, an advisory board, and a teacher/parent network. An appropriate core curriculum can provide all students with a foundation of knowledge for studying and appreciating the unique qualities of any…