This is the first of a two-part article that presents a theory of unit construction and coordination that underlies radical constructivist empirical studies of student learning ranging from young students' counting strategies to high school students' algebraic reasoning. My explanation starts with the formation of arithmetical units, which presage…

Conversations as moments for interpersonal and intimate turning round of ideas for the purpose of growth are well-defined within curriculum inquiry. Interactions among grade 12 students in this study demonstrate the possibility of learning to learn mathematics through conversation. Attending to opportunities for learning-based conversations,…

This study examined the impact of teaching creativity in the form of associative thinking strategies within a metacognitive framework. A representative sample of 30 university design students was selected from a larger section (N = 122) to participate in a 16-week supplemental course. Each week a new creative thinking strategy was integrated with…

This study examined the effect of strategy instruction and incentives on performance, confidence, and calibration accuracy. Individuals (N = 107) in randomly assigned treatment groups received a multicomponent strategy instruction intervention, financial incentives for high performance, or both. The authors predicted that incentives would improve…

Research on self-regulated learning has focused predominantly on a static individual level to explain various strengths and weaknesses of learners. However, much learning today is highly interactive and technologically enhanced, which an individually oriented perspective to regulated learning does not consider. In this article we discuss…

As part of an ongoing project to examine student learning in upper-division courses in thermal and statistical physics, we have examined student reasoning about entropy and the second law of thermodynamics. We have examined reasoning in terms of heat transfer, entropy maximization, and statistical treatments of multiplicity and probability. In…

Lots of studies have tried to test the effect of strategy training on vocabulary development. However, instead of trying to uncover the strategies that learners actually use, they have tried to expose learners to a list of strategies supported by theories. Although these theory-driven studies have provided the field with significant and…

With the nationwide focus on increasing students understanding and use of technology, many teachers are beginning to incorporate a variety of technology into small group rotations. However, the use of technology during these rotations often does not require students to use higher level thinking or problem solving skills. By eliminating the…

Teaching and learning research since the 1980s has established a trend in students' learning approach tendencies, characterised by decreasing surface learning and increasing deep learning with increasing age. This is an important trend in higher education, especially at a time of increasing numbers of older students: are we graduating more deep…

This chapter explores emotional intelligence as the glue that binds people together regardless of cultural differences.

Asking students to imagine the spatial arrangement of the elements in a scientific text constitutes a learning strategy intended to foster deep processing of the instructional material. Two experiments investigated the effects of mental imagery prompts on learning from scientific text. Students read a computer-based text on the human respiratory…

This qualitative study examined fourth-year undergraduate students' responses to reflective writing prompts and journal entries related to their practical experiences in two capstone courses, both based in SBL/PBL pedagogies. We examined their "strategic" approaches to learning that make engagement with subject matter and learning…

This article reports a meta-analysis of 42 experiments in 33 published studies involving processing instruction (PI) and production-based instruction (PB) used in the PI studies. The comparative effectiveness of PI and PB showed that although PI was more effective than PB for developing receptive knowledge, PB was just as effective as PI for…

In this article we explore how reconceptualizing the role of technology in place-based education (PBE) enhances place responsive pedagogies through technology. Combining the strengths of adventure learning (AL) and PBE, Adventure Learning @ (AL@) advances both place responsive education and online learning in science education. This is needed, as…

Purpose: There are two conditions that threaten to derail the American education system as we know it: the poor state of the US economy in America and the less than effective structure of the American education system. Researchers and practitioners are searching to identify tools and strategies that can help to restore confidence in the soundness…