Describes the JITOL (Just-in-Time Open Learning) project funded by the European Community and offers a JITOL perspective on electronic performance support as a technology for accessing distributed knowledge and promoting continuing professional development through computer-mediated communication. The learning cycle, prototype tools, and courseware…

Comments on Flavell's paper (PS 522 962) presented in the same issue. Stresses some of the positive aspects of preschoolers' conception of thinking, and raises questions about the relatively negative portrait of young child's introspective abilities. Discusses evidence of introspection among preschoolers, and underlines the special, and…

Comments on Flavell's paper in this issue. Examines the paper's findings on three different aspects of children's knowledge about thinking: their ability to differentiate thinking from other activities, their awareness that thinking is always going on in people's minds, and their capacity for introspection into their own thinking. Argues that…

Articulates general principles of learning based on research of the earliest periods of language acquisition in childhood. The principles are meant to be suggestive and to contribute to the development of a first language acquisition-based theory of learning. (78 references) (MDM)

Briefly describes current research on learning and teaching and discusses its implications for the field of educational administration. In the United States, an important transition is now occurring as instructional psychologists increasingly turn away from behaviorist models that dominated educational thinking for three decades to develop new…

Agrees with Brian Rowan's article on learning and teaching research in the same issue of "Educational Administration Quarterly." Builds on Rowan's contributions by presenting three major ideas: the cognitive perspective has yet to define adequately a core technology of teaching; foundational understandings of learning and teaching are inextricably…

Action science focuses on unexamined beliefs that drive action, evaluating behavior for consistency and validity against beliefs and meaning systems. One goal is to move from single-loop to double-loop learning. Critical issues include its seemingly therapeutic nature, the problem of free and informed choice, and facilitator competence. (SK)

Discussion of instructional technology in the university highlights new demands on the structure of the university, different assumptions about the definition of knowledge versus information, the role of the university in an information-oriented society, and the difference between supplementing media and comprehensive planned instruction. (LRW)

Presents a model of information processing that demonstrates how to facilitate knowledge acquisition. Various instructional strategies designed to reduce the effect of impositions are described, such as use of novelty, mystery, and questioning techniques; reducing complexity of instructional messages; and the automaticity of secondary skills. (JKP)

Discusses instructional design and the integration of computer-assisted learning (CAL) into corporate training. Topics include the social context of learning in models of instructional design, and CAL as a substitute for other instructional media, as an enrichment, and as an organizational innovation. (LRW)

If evaluation is to communicate and promote student learning, it must be separated into formative and summative components. A grading policy that provides nonthreatening feedback (via observation of student work, group evaluation activities, classroom participation, homework, reports, discussions, and portfolios) can help students concentrate on…

Discussion of expert systems and intelligent tutoring systems in the education field highlights an expert system that was developed to enhance the learning process in the field of grammatical constructs. Topics addressed include representing the natural language; parsing; LOGOOP (Logo in Object-Oriented Programing); and user-system interface. (11…

Examines terms used to describe the changing of an innovation by an adopter, including reinvention, fidelity, adaptation, and mutual adaptation. Three explanations for adaptation of innovation--interpretation, adopter innovativeness, and generative learning--are discussed; and the theory of generative learning is used to explain internal…

An integrated approach to developing incidental trainers and teachers teaches learning-centered decision making for planning training and setting objectives. The learning model used for instructional design has five steps: be introduced to topic/skill, get to know it, try it, get feedback, apply it. (SK)

Student learning is affected by (1) process variables--student-teacher interaction and its effect on student behavior; (2) product variables--short- and long-term outcomes; and (3) presage variables--effect of teachers' formative experiences on teaching behavior. (SK)