Missing in curriculum revision/school restructuring links is a curriculum paradigm that incorporates reflective intelligence while promoting social and utilitarian responsibilities. The "social-reconstructive wedge" model described in this article addresses this paradoxical issue by treating the school system as a social system where constituents…

Interviews with 72 volunteers who participated in community development activities over 9 years showed that (1) all increased existing knowledge and skills; (2) on average, women learned more than men; and (3) the greater the level of involvement, the greater the learning. (SK)

Proposes a model for learning and training for intercultural communication competence. Discusses the five levels of the model. Presents five categories of questions to challenge cultural stereotypes. (RS)

The reasoning strategies that students used in understanding qualitative changes in simple biosystem models were investigated. Three important tools of thought were identified concerned with how students made assumptions, dealt with variable interactions, and attributed holistic properties to the system. Findings suggest that students' use of…

Discusses the nature of English from a historical perspective. Argues that conceptions of English arise within or center around an open set or centripetal tendencies and purposes. Discusses these purposes as coalescing around five distinct foundational metaphors, which help to answer how to teach English and how to organize it for instruction.…

Discusses four books that can help teachers offer students opportunities to engage in purposeful oral language activities. (PRA)

Describes the Cooperative Reading Activity (CRA), a technique used with third graders to show them that everyone could read a part of a literature selection and contribute to another's learning. (PRA)

The past decade has seen the emergence of numerous new terms, research approaches, and evidence of the nature of learning. Some new concepts are authentic activity, apprenticeship learning, case-based research, conceptual change, constructivism, distributed knowledge, and socially shared cognition. Constructs underlying the new terms involve the…

Discussion of evaluation of learning focuses on a constructivist approach to evaluation based on a constructivist learning model. Topics addressed include comparing traditionalist and constructivist views; traditional evaluation of learning; and constructivist evaluation strategies that include one-sentence summaries, concept maps, annotated…

An understanding of the role played by specific centers of the brain will help special education instructors develop appropriate individualized instructional programs for the learning disabled. Neurobiological learning makes it clear that teaching the learning disabled should be based on the principles of learning strategies instruction,…

Discusses the relationship between situated cognition and anchored instruction in response to criticism of a previous article. Topics addressed include school versus nonschool settings; learning by observing models; "real-world" problem solving; transfer of training; and future work. (26 references) (LRW)

The first part of the process model for experiential learning (EL) includes student characteristics and needs (role of experience and prior knowledge, different learning processes, active involvement, affiliation needs, life context) and conceptual foundations of EL (definitions of knowledge, elements of cognition, constructivist teaching,…

Describes Prolog programing language and provides an overview of articles in this special issue and a forthcoming one that focus on improving the use of Prolog in elementary and secondary schools as well as colleges. Topics discussed include problems related to teaching and learning Prolog, and students and their misconceptions about Prolog. (38…

A study that has uncovered robust memories among former students for material learned in a college course after as long as 11 years is discussed. This is in contrast to the widespread conviction that the passing of years wipes away most recollections of concepts and facts learned in school. (KR)

Defines the concept of autonomous learning. Presents the Strategies Program for Effective Learning/Thinking (SPELT), including its underlying assumptions, instructional model, teacher training procedures, research findings, and anticipated future development. Research results include implications for learning-disabled and gifted students. (KS)