Educating all students well requires new teaching methods and learning environments that fully exploit what is known about the learning process. Cognitive research is providing detailed understanding of the knowledge, skills, and self-monitoring strategies children need to master school subjects. This article illustrates how putting cognitive…

This article uses a case study of a deaf-blind infant to examine issues in the early cognitive development of such infants. The study used an ecological approach involving naturalistic observation, videotaping, anecdotal accounts, and the use of four global developmental scales. (DB)

Views of (n=70) 16- and 17-year olds on mathematical knowledge, activity, and learning were analyzed using factorial techniques. Findings suggest there was no simple systematic relationship between beliefs about the nature of mathematical knowledge and the teaching and learning of mathematics. (19 references) (Author/MKR)

Develops a metaphor of qualitative research as jazz to illuminate qualities that are embedded in the processes of qualitative inquiry. The jazz metaphor is said to create a pathway for making explicit the tacit understandings that permit qualitative research to flow and to be guided by the new findings and emerging understandings it uncovers. (GLR)

Provides an overview of issues and research in three areas where gender manifests itself in the English-as-a-foreign-language classroom: the English language, materials (grammars, textbooks and teacher-guides), and processes (learning styles and strategies). Also examined are implications of gender in materials and classroom interaction for…

Describes exercises that can uncover the assumptions underlying educational practice: (1) scenario analysis; (2) critical debate; (3) simulations of crisis decisions; (4) identifying heroes and villains; and (5) analysis of critical incidents. (SK)

Asserts that there is a need for writing teachers to reevaluate the metaphors they use to think about composition. Retraces the steps taken by Robert Zoellner in 1969 to reconsider the instrumental metaphors used by composition theories in the 1990s. Offers a criticism of the writing process model proposed by Linda Flower and John Hayes. (PRA)

Discussed is the importance of establishing the link between students' understanding of mathematics in real world settings and the symbolism used to represent that mathematics. Examples provide evidence that students and sometimes teachers fail to establish that link. References are given for resources providing strategies and contexts to assist…

Study investigated the effects of retelling practice sessions on the prose comprehension of fourth grade proficient and less proficient readers. For four sessions, they read silently, rendered free recall, then retold if desired. Researcher assessments indicated such practice in retelling caused significant improvements in quantity and quality of…

Recounts one teacher's experience at unsuccessfully solving spatial problems in a workshop experimenting with individualistic and cooperative learning approaches to problem solving. This humbling experience reminded the author that failure is humiliating and can arise from simply not knowing how to think about a task. All humans are "at-risk"…

Reviews writing instruction for adult nonnative speakers of English, and discusses problems encountered over the past quarter century. Five issues are addressed, including the topics of writing, the issue of "real" writing, the nature of the academic discourse community, contrastive rhetoric, and responding to writing. (116 references) (VWL)

Two studies compared the effects of imagery-based instruction and rote learning on the long-term recall of English translations of Chinese ideographs. In no instance was there any indication that imagery-based mnemonics conferred an advantage beyond the immediate test of recall. (27 references) (Author/LB)

Discusses the role that technology must play in schools to be effective in changing the nature of students' learning. The relationship between schools, society, and technology is examined; the traditional research approach is described as inappropriate; and new design experiments that use successive refinement to improve innovative instructional…

Argues that traditional approaches to professional development--whether in university classrooms or school settings--are unlikely to create change because they are based on an artificial dichotomy between theory and practice. Revitalizing educational practice requires that we examine our own beliefs and practice to modify our approach to…

Teaching/learning trends include (1) incremental (information explosion); (2) stationary (biology of cognitive processes); and (3) iterative (recurring debates over teaching methods). Effects are externalization of knowledge structures, the importance of "importance," and instructional "enabling," failure of teachers and students to confront real…