This article is based on research with a group of one-year Postgraduate Certificate in Education secondary trainee teachers during their initial teacher education and training in England. It considers tensions between trainees' prior experiences and conceptions of teaching and their training programme. In doing so, it seeks to examine how a…

This article presents a checklist that teachers and other education professionals can use when deciding which instructional materials to include in their content area instruction. The checklist addresses several considerations, such as the learners' prior knowledge, vocabulary levels, and motivation. In addition, characteristics of the text…

This article considers the nature of experiential learning and its relationship with other forms of learning that gain their authority through assessment. It argues that experiential learning is grounded in, and stands upon, the notion of phronesis and is the goal of an educated populace. This argument, should it prevail, would see wisdom as the…

Visual representations are essential for communicating ideas in the science classroom; however, the design of such representations is not always beneficial for learners. This paper presents instructional design considerations providing empirical evidence and integrating theoretical concepts related to cognitive load. Learners have a limited…

Sixty-two high-school biology students, paired heterogeneously based on prior knowledge, learned about genetic using GenScope, a computer-based learning environment (CBLE), over four 90-minute class periods. Differences between low and high prior knowledge students emerged with convergence of verbal process data and pre- and post-test product…

This article provides a broad introduction to comprehension instruction in content area classrooms. It begins with a brief overview of research and of thinking processes involved in reading comprehension. Then, it outlines several research-supported comprehension strategies, including: (1) Question asking and answering; (2) Clarifying a purpose…

Plausibility has been implicated as playing a critical role in many cognitive phenomena from comprehension to problem solving. Yet, across cognitive science, plausibility is usually treated as an operationalized variable or metric rather than being explained or studied in itself. This article describes a new cognitive model of plausibility, the…

Instructors used an electronic response system to enhance student-centered learning in large and small college biology classes. The system worked well to engage students in learning the subject matter and to assess their prior knowledge and misconceptions. It provided useful feedback to students as well as instructors. Problems encountered…

This study examined the influence of scaffolding on the development of critical thinking skills in an online course on Instructional Design. Data were collected through interviews and document artifacts from five participants of the online course. Findings indicated that participants' critical thinking moved through three stages from mirroring, to…

This paper sets out to identify some key problems, issues and challenges relating to out-of-school experiences of learners in science teaching that emerged during classroom observations in schools in Botswana. Generally, there is evidence suggesting weak incorporation of learners' experiences into teaching. The experiences seemed to have a lower…

In an era of continuing developments in science and technology, teachers are faced with an increasingly challenging task of helping K-12 students become and remain scientifically literate. Effective science instruction involves activation of prior knowledge, hands-on learning, and continuous reflection. Technology has the potential to play a…

Three experiments with paired comparisons were conducted to test the noncompensatory character of the recognition heuristic (D. G. Goldstein & G. Gigerenzer, 2002) in judgment and decision making. Recognition and knowledge about the recognized alternative were manipulated. In Experiment 1, participants were presented pairs of animal names where…

Hierarchical graphs represent relationships between objects (like computer file systems, family trees etc.). Graph nodes represent the objects and interconnecting lines represent the relationships. In two experiments we investigated what concepts are necessary for understanding hierarchical graphs, what misconceptions evolve when some of the…

This study explored the relations between 5- and 6-year-olds' (N = 40) past social experiences, social knowledge, and interpretation and recall of social situations. Children were read stories depicting a fictional child's behaviors, and path analyses related children's impressions of the story character and story recall to their expectations…

In this article, the author advocates the use of literacy narratives--assignments in which students are asked to describe and reflect upon their experiences with reading and writing. Among their other uses, she believes that they provide a sense of students' prior literacy experiences and of their general feelings toward reading and writing, and…