Compares a soft system model of teaching with a hard systems model for learning, essential components of which are perception, memory, and concept formation. Proposes a combination of soft systems thinking and hard systems instruction as a scientific basis for the craft of teaching. (SK)

Explores the challenge presented by the exercise of memory, through oral history, as an historical method. Notes the use of historical data generated by memory projects. Concludes that memory recollection, as a historical medium, can be a resource for bearing witness to history's power to shape lives as individuals experience it. (KDR)

Describes an undergraduate sociology course that taught qualitative and quantitative data analysis. Focuses on two students and how they dealt with and overcame anxiety issues, subsequently achieving higher levels of learning and new learning strategies. (KDR)

Argues that epistemological beliefs of community college students can impact their learning processes. Explains that epistemological beliefs interact with other knowledge structures. Reports on a study that explores the association between students' epistemological beliefs and learning processes. Suggests there are relationships between Fixed…

Investigates whether pupils aged 12-15 years perceive physical quantities as intensive or extensive. Written questionnaires were administered to 300 pupils comprising four tasks for each intensive quantity, density and pressure. Analysis reveals three models of consistent pupils' reasoning. (Author/SOE)

Surveys relevant literature on the question of how people learn through doing drama. Proposes a construct to describe this learning process. Concludes that drama, even more than other storytelling and other fictional processes, employs the world-creating and hypothetical processes some have attributed to basic learning processes, which permeate…

Investigated the extent to which 3.5-month-old infants trained in amodal auditory-visual relations between falling objects and the sounds they made could generalize their intermodal knowledge to a new task and across events. Found that infants tested with familiar events and with events of a new color or shape showed learning and transfer…

Four studies examined 10- to 18-month-old infants' ability to detect and encode correlations among features in a motion event. Findings indicated that the youngest infants process static features in an event independently but do not process correlations among dynamic features; the oldest detect correlations between all three features when the…

Examined 2-year-olds' comprehension and production of novel nouns, verbs, or actions at 3 intervals after training conducted in massed or distributed exposures. Found that for comprehension, children learned all item types in all training conditions at all retention intervals. Production was better for nonverbal actions than for either word type…

Discusses the use of models as an instructional method in science classrooms and makes suggestions on how to use models more effectively. (Contains 28 references.) (Author/YDS)

Describes a laboratory-type activity, liquid assets, used to illustrate, develop, or reinforce central concepts in first-year algebra. These include linear function, slope, intercept, and dependent and independent variables. Presents a group activity for collecting data, transition from group to individual activity in plotting data points, and…

Two repertory grids were elicited from each of eight British college students (including five peer facilitators). Initially, all rated self-expectations more important in learning. On the second grid of the peer facilitators, interaction with others was rated more important to learning. (Contains 26 references.) (SK)

Community colleges students (n=24) taught math by instructors trained in self-regulated learning were compared with 54 taught conventionally. Mean scores did not differ but self-regulation techniques strengthened the relations among feedback seeking, self-regulation standard, internal calibration, perceiving choice, and effective learning…

Explores the detailed processes whereby concert performances of serious music are collectively achieved in rehearsal. The article concentrates on a youth orchestra rehearsing a section of a Beethoven symphony that was audiotaped. The article further focuses on the "talk" that shapes the collective musical activities rather than the…

Disagrees with Ellis's claim (1996) that learning the grammatical word class of a particular word, and learning grammatical structures more generally, involves in "large part" the automatic implicit analysis of the word's sequential position. The article maintains that some grammatical acquisition, but not "vast amounts," derives from the analysis…