Students attending a lecture usually have a wide range of prior knowledge about the topic in question. Rather than seeing this as a problem, lecturers can take advantage of such differences. This article shows how students' misconceptions about old age were used to inform a lecture on the topic. Prior knowledge can thus be used to aid teaching and…

In this article, the author describes integrated science and mathematics activities developed for fourth-grade students to explore and investigate three-dimensional geometric shapes, Bernoulli's principle, estimation, and art with and through bubbles. Students were engaged in thinking and reflection on the questions their teachers asked and were…

Purpose: The purpose of this exploratory study is to identify trainee attributes relevant for development of skills in 3D computer-aided design (CAD). Design/methodology/approach: Participants were trained to perform cognitive tasks of comparable complexity over time. Performance data were collected on the time needed to construct test models, and…

Biostatistics is not universally available in colleges/universities and is thus an attractive course to offer via distance education. However, evaluation of the impact of distance education on course enrollment and student success is lacking. We evaluated an "Introduction to Biostatistics" course at Harvard University that offered the distance…

In this paper we describe Expanding Textual Repertoires (ETR) as a framework for enhancing Singaporean secondary school teachers' understanding of the nature and effective teaching of the increasingly specialized language and literacy competencies required of their students for skilled participation in the curriculum areas at the secondary grade…

Prior research has established that peer tutors can benefit academically from their tutoring experiences. However, although tutor learning has been observed across diverse settings, the magnitude of these gains is often underwhelming. In this review, the authors consider how analyses of tutors' actual behaviors may help to account for variation in…

Effectively targeting a heterogeneous student population is a common challenge in academic courses. Most traditional learning material targets the "average student," and is suboptimal for students who lack certain prior knowledge, or students who have already attained some of the course objectives. Student-activating learning material supports…

Background: Research on the presentation of information in narrative versus expository text genres is inconclusive with respect to the question of which is more beneficial for student learning. Aims: We examine the effect of presenting factual content in either narrative or expository genres on student learning. We also consider relevant prior…

During the past decade three different bridging mathematics courses have been offered at the University of Auckland. A case study approach was used to investigate the effectiveness of these courses: two larger courses and one individual study programme. A different teaching approach, by committed experienced teachers, was used in each course. The…

Tiered instruction is grouping students for instruction based on their prior background knowledge in a given subject area. In this study, students were either in a control secondary science classroom or a classroom in which instruction was tiered. The tiered instruction was designed to match high, middle, or low levels of background knowledge on…

A series of microgenetic experiments was conducted to examine the role of experience on 2.5- to 5-year-old children's discovery of spatial mapping strategies. With experience, 3- to 4-year-olds discovered a strategy for mapping corresponding locations that shared both featural and spatial similarities. When featural and spatial correspondences…

This paper reports on an interpretive study of block play in a class of 16 kindergartners. Over the course of a school year 16 hours of videotape of the children's block play was recorded and analyzed. A typology of block play with four domains of block construction, social interaction, negotiation, and scheme development is explained and…

An analysis of the learning process that focuses on the role of elaboration and students' prior knowledge is presented. Learning from instruction is distinguished from learning and instruction, and a series of learning functions are identified. (TJH)

Analyzes the role of students' prior knowledge in their emerging understanding of the mole. The research question this study seeks to answer is what knowledge, if any, do student have regarding the mole and what prior knowledge do they access when presented problems regarding the nature of the mole. Data collection focuses on student knowledge…

Seven- and ten-year-olds listened to taped stories. In one version, familiar television characters were described as having attributes incongruous with those the children knew from television. Three weeks later, children's recall of the stories indicated considerable shifts in memory toward their preexperimental knowledge of the TV characters.…