A remedial reading teacher compares her experience in a night-school carpentry course to how she taught her students, reflecting on whether she adequately prepared students for learning, correctly assumed how much students knew, and was appropriately reassuring to students. (CB)

Examines the predator-prey relations and the preconceptions held by children (n=506) on the construction of food chains. Results show that the classification of herbivores and carnivores is based on children's preconceptions of size and ferocity and sheds light on the difficulties students have at higher education levels in the resolution of food…

Discusses ethical issues that self-employed librarians must consider. Highlights include the lack of institutional support; the perceived value of the service; meeting client expectations and client dissatisfaction ethically; money and ethics, including how to charge for prior knowledge and experience; and client relationships, including working…

When assessment of prior learning is used to teach self-reflection, it encourages developmental growth. Techniques that support development include goals statements, autobiographies, and experiential learning essays. (SK)

Asserts that students' inaccurate prior knowledge in science can hinder the learning process. Presents instructional strategies for elementary and secondary school students that have been proved effective by research, such as augmented activation activities, refutational text, nonrefutational text, and the discussion web. (PRA)

University students of Spanish at three different course levels were used in a study of the effects of topic familiarity on second-language listening comprehension. Findings regarding the supporting role of background knowledge are consistent with many second-language reading and listening studies. (Contains 45 references.) (LB)

Current applications of experiential learning in higher education include field-based experiences, credit for prior learning, and classroom-based programs. In the workplace, action learning, future search, and outdoor education are among the forms of experiential learning being used. (SK)

Research findings concerning the relationship of personal knowledge and human cognitive processes are reviewed. Ways in which the impact of prior knowledge typically is not obvious to the teacher, and ways in which prior knowledge can disrupt the learning processes, are examined. Implications for education are discussed. (Author/MSE)

Seeks to identify difference between six proficient and less proficient college freshmen in their use of personal evocations and reflections in the reading transaction. Finds that, although proficient readers integrate textual cues and prior knowledge in a process of reflecting about stories and characters, less proficient readers seem to approach…

Examines the effects of 2 levels of prior knowledge and 2 types of text structure on the recall and question performance of 90 fifth graders who were average readers. Finds that prior knowledge has a greater effect on question performance than on recall performance and that it only enhances the recall of one section of the text information. (MG)

Discusses the impact of the cognitive revolution in psychology on reading research. Cognitive perspectives of reading have revealed complex processes ranging from simple peripheral visual processing in letter recognition to high order processes in text comprehension. It is also argued that a full account of reading skill should include…

Determines whether content knowledge influences conversational participation when native speakers (NS) interact with nonnative speakers (NNS), and investigates whether native speakers tend to participate more actively than nonnative speakers in these interactions. Conversations from 45 NS-NNS pairs are analyzed and discussed. (46 references) (GLR)

A process for translating experience into college-level learning involves identifying relevant experiences and types: (1) a single experience leading to a single learning topic; (2) a single experience leading to several topics; or (3) several experiences leading to a single topic. Visual representations of these types help students validate the…

Describes how prior knowledge, current text, future text, and prior text all play a part in knowledge acquisition. States that most content area reading instruction emphasizes only current text. Notes that future columns will address this issue by introducing a method for teaching comprehension of exposition called "knowledge modeling." (SR)

Examined the influence of three factors on five-year-olds' drawings of a transparent mug with its handle turned away. The factors were mug contents; label used to describe the mug; and explicitness of the drawing instructions. Subjects were most likely to produce view-specific drawings when given specific instructions and presented with a mug…