The study describes the extent of change in students' cognitive expectations after going through an Introductory Physics course. Cognitive expectations are beliefs about the learning process and the structure of knowledge. Using the Maryland Physics Expectations (MPEX) survey, the students' responses reflected the highest level of agreement with the "experts' response" in the following clusters: independence, math link, reality link, and effort link. The study has shown that students...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Liberal Arts, Physics, Business Education, Introductory Courses, Student Attitudes,...
This five month qualitative study explored, over time and across literacy events, the ways in which a second grade teacher, Ms. Wilson, and her students built a shared frame of reference, or shared mental context, for viewing reading. Data sources included: field notes, video and audiotaped records, artifacts, and teacher and student interviews. Analysis was informed by Mercer's (2000) notions of context and continuity and considered the ways in which students and teacher drew upon contextual...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Discourse Analysis, Teaching Methods, Interviews, Classroom Techniques, Student...
Although small in scope, this study attempted to analyze the impacts of primary sources and field trip experiences on multicultural education through first-hand narrative interviews, one year after the experience. In particular, it assessed the recollections of students who participated in a one-half-day field trip to George Washington Carver National Monument, a site devoted to a multicultural message. In an attempt to learn as much as possible related to long-term memories of multicultural...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Multicultural Education, Field Trips, Primary Sources, Interviews, Recall...
Conducted for the Bringing Theory to Practice project, this literature review examines the theoretical and research bases for linking engaged learning, student mental health and well-being, and civic development. The findings of this review are discussed briefly in this article. Current prevention literature recommends a shift from targeted interventions toward community-level approaches in addressing students' mental health concerns. In this article, the author presents a definition of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Practices, Mental Health, Well Being, Time on Task, Learning Processes,...
In this article, the author explores the promising practices of Audrey Union (all names in this article are pseudonyms), a white principal of Integration Middle School (IMS), which served nearly 400 students in sixth through ninth grades. Approximately 40% of the students were of color and a similar percentage qualified for free and reduced lunch. In particular, the author examines Audrey's influence in creating systemic, sustained, and differentiated professional development for social justice...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Change, Justice, Faculty Development, Principals, Social Integration,...
Least-to-most prompting hierarchies (e.g., progressing from verbal to modeled to physical prompts until the target response occurs) may be ineffective when the prompts do not cue the individual to attend to the relevant stimulus dimensions. In such cases, emission of the target response persistently requires one or more of the higher level prompts, a condition called prompt dependence (Clark & Green, 2004). Reinforcement of differential observing responses (DORs) has sometimes been used to...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Stimuli, Prompting, Autism, Novelty (Stimulus Dimension), Task Analysis, Cues,...
The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that dynamic assessment based instruction increases children's learning by using a quasi-experimental research design in Korea. In this study, dynamic assessment is defined as a measurement method of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) as well as the qualitative and quantitative diagnostic information for individual children. In addition, dynamic assessment based instruction is defined as a teaching method using the diagnostic information types in...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Teaching Methods, Research Design, Experimental Groups, Data...
Critics of Invitational Education and other self-concept approaches to learning have long argued that there is a lack of empirical data to support the claims that approaches to student instruction based on self-concept theory are central to effective learning. Ellis (2001) examines a number of these analyses where self-concept, self-esteem, and self-efficacy are derided as antecedents to successful learning. However, by examining the empirical research on classroom management, all of the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Self Efficacy, Teacher Student Relationship, Classroom Techniques, Educational...
This qualitative study investigated how students adapt to medical school. Thirty-six medical students completed an e-mail survey exploring the transition from pre-medical to medical education, the use of learning strategies, and self-regulated learning practices. Their responses highlighted the challenges of medical education and the learning skills that lead to the successful mastery of course demands. Respondents identified volume of information as the major transition issue. Key strategies...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Medical Schools, Medical Students, Learning Strategies, Medical Education, Self...
Preservice teachers generally are confident and enthusiastic about their abilities to teach effectively. These desirable qualities are based, for the most part, on the preservice teachers' previous experiences as students in the classroom, not as teachers. While the personal experience a preservice teacher brings to his or her teacher-preparation program represents an important foundation for professional growth, the role as an instructional leader in the classroom is one that must be learned....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Preservice Teacher Education, Student Teachers, Mentors, Learning Processes,...
For decades the National Science Foundation has been funding the development of instructional materials whose design is based upon the recommendations of educational research. These recommendations include the idea that learning be sequenced and organized using an experiential learning cycle or an instructional model such as the Biological Science Curriculum Study (BSCS) 5E Instructional Model (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate). More recent research studies such as those...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Curriculum Development, Educational Research, Prior Learning, Experiential Learning,...
Much research has been compiled on service-learning, its benefits, and its influence on intrinsic motivation. Service-learning has been used as a method of teaching content in science education, civic education and history, business and marketing education, as well as other areas. However, a review of literature found no service-learning studies that focused on student engagement or commitment to learning in a high school construction technology classroom setting. This qualitative case study of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Case Studies, Service Learning, Course Content, High School Students, Learning...
In 2002-03, a qualitative study examined the experiences of 70 stakeholders connected to two community-based adult literacy programs in Manitoba, Canada. Self-directed learning was one of several elements that these research participants considered essential to the learning process. These literacy stakeholders defined self-directed learning as a combination of factors related to giving learners choices over what, how, and when to learn. They saw self-selected subject areas, assignment topics,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Literacy Education, Adult Basic Education, Adult Learning, Adult Students, Foreign...
There is evidence that spontaneous learning leads to relational understanding and high positive affect. To study spontaneous abstracting, a model was constructed by combining the RBC model of abstraction with Krutetskii's mental activities. Using video-stimulated interviews, the model was then used to analyze the behavior of two Year 8 students who had demonstrated spontaneous abstracting. The analysis highlighted the crucial role of synthetic and evaluative analysis, two processes that seem...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Cooperative Learning, Documentation, Mathematics Instruction, Secondary Education,...
A model for processes of abstraction, based on epistemic actions, has been proposed elsewhere. Here we apply this model to processes in which groups of individual students construct shared knowledge and consolidate it. The data emphasizes the interactive flow of knowledge from one student to the others in the group, until they reach a shared knowledge--a common basis of knowledge which allows them to continue the construction of further knowledge in the same topic together. (Contains 5...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Learning Processes, Probability, Epistemology, Cognitive...
The learning cycle has been embraced as a teaching approach that is consistent with the goals of the "National Science Education Standards" (National Research Council, 1996). Science teacher educators may be disappointed to find, however, that preservice teachers may fail to grasp this model, even after extensive instruction (e.g., Settlage, 2000). Our own preservice teachers often express the belief that teaching multiple activities related to a single concept is redundant. In this...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Preservice Teachers, Learning Processes, Teaching Models, Science Instruction,...
This article provides an overview of constructivism and its implications for classroom practices. To that end, it first describes the basic features of constructivism along with its major forms or variations. It then elucidates the constructivist view of knowledge, learning, teaching, and the relationship among these constructs. More specifically, it explains the assumptions and principles of constructivist pedagogy, bringing to the fore its core characteristics that differ fundamentally from...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Constructivism (Learning), Learning Processes, Teaching Methods, Theory Practice...
The purpose of this paper is to outline a judgement-based model of adult learning. This approach is set out as a Perceptual-Judgemental-Reinforcement approach to social learning under conditions of complexity and where there is no single, clearly identified correct response. The model builds upon the Hager-Halliday thesis of workplace learning and incorporates elements of the image theory of decision-making as the engine for judgements. A power curve is used as a description of cognitive...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Socialization, Adult Learning, Learning Processes, Learning Theories, Evaluative...
This paper explores participation in social partnerships as a space for learning. It analyses interview data about participation in social partnership from partnerships involved in vocational education and training (VET) to argue that social partnerships constitute a form of learning space. Partnership participants engage in new learning through the interactions and activities inherent in partnership work, and relational learning is the kind of learning most supported in these learning spaces....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Vocational Education, Educational Change, Interviews, Learning Processes,...
Practice-based or experiential learning has come to be dominated by mentalist models of reflection on experience. The argument here is that these models split mind from body and subject from environment in ways that yield problematic practices. An alternate conception of practice-based learning is offered here, based on the notion of "co-emergence." According to complexity theory, co-emergence is a key dimension characterizing complex adaptive systems such as classrooms, schools, and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Experiential Learning, Learning Theories, Reflective Teaching, Portfolio Assessment,...
In order to develop an in-depth understanding and meaning of the preconceptions of teaching and learning that pre-service teachers hold, it is important that one should also focus on how these views were constructed and played out in different socio-cultural contexts prior to teacher education. This is particularly significant in the education of a heterogeneous and a culturally diverse population of pre-service teachers, such as exists in Papua New Guinea. The case study approach was employed...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Preservice Teacher Education, Teacher Education Programs, Cultural Context, Religious...
The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of teacher learning in a cohort-based, master's degree program in curriculum and pedagogy that was intentionally designed to be responsive to teachers' personal needs and preferences. The program aimed to: (1) provide teachers with the confidence to connect what they do in their classrooms to research-informed practices; (2) immerse teachers in a collaborative culture that allowed them to learn from one another as colleagues; (3) consider...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Discourse Communities, Program Design, Course Content, Learning Processes, Masters...
This article presents a dialogue with Paulo Freire, the most widely recognized and influential theorist and educator of critical pedagogy. He is perhaps best known for his literacy work in the decolonization process in a number of countries in South America and Africa, and for his first book, "Pedagogy of the Oppressed," published in 1970. While the theoretical grounding and implications of Freire's practices are profound, at the foundation of such work is the conviction that a...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teacher Education, Critical Theory, Democracy, Ideology, Learning Processes, Foreign...
Teacher Research Groups (TRGs) provide one means of creating learning communities among teachers with the express purpose of systematically examining practice and enriching teachers' knowledge about learning and teaching. These groups meet regularly, may be facilitated by a more experienced peer or university researcher, assist teachers with the development of research questions and methods, and support individual members as they work through the research process. Their purpose is to engage...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Research, Teaching Methods, Reflective Teaching, Discourse Analysis,...
The discourse on teacher quality has centered on issues of teacher knowledge and teacher skill, yet a third element that is central to all professional standards is teacher dispositions. Although there is no consensus about a definition of teacher dispositions, there are several models in use regarding how dispositions are being addressed. Most prevalent in terms of assessing dispositions are the standards of professional organizations such as National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Personality Traits, Teacher Characteristics, National Standards, Teacher...
In the United States in the last few years, a considerable amount of attention has been given to literacy programs as a way to close the academic gap between English-only (EO) students and English language learners (ELL). Teacher education programs around the country have been dealing with issues of academic inequity for some time. There are no recipes for effective teacher education programs. Classroom inquiry, however, has been identified as a useful approach that assists teacher candidates...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Preservice Teacher Education, Student Needs, Teacher Education Programs, Second...
Increasing diversity in the student population intensifies the need for and the difficulties of establishing culturally sensitive and meaningful communication between teachers and parents. This study examined the practices of early childhood and elementary teachers concerning culturally sensitive home-school communication. As a second phase of a multi-phase research design, focus group discussions were conducted with 21 participants. Discussions centered on the teachers' understanding of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Research Design, Focus Groups, Disabilities, Student Diversity, Cultural Differences,...
The concept of management by objectives has long been used in business in enhancing good staff performance. There has been growing interest among teaching researchers in exploring the influence of goals within the academic field. Much of the early work in this area of motivational research has been done with children, rather than with college students. Only recently have the theories been extended to college classrooms. Goal setting can dramatically influence students' self-regulated learning...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Management by Objectives, Student Motivation, Goal Orientation, Teaching Methods,...
Whether it is volcanoes or video games, teachers know that when children enjoy a subject, they are far more motivated to take charge of their education. What teachers are learning now is that offering high interest topics may be less important than offering kids challenging tasks--new problems to solve--that tap into the way children's brains are wired to learn. According to Alison Gopnik, a psychology professor at the University of California at Berkeley, children know how to program the TiVo...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Learning Processes, Student Motivation, Interviews, Cognitive Processes, Brain, Young...
The purpose of the current study was to explore the use of overt and covert self-rules in the acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of a chained task by adults with mild developmental disabilities. This research differed from previous research in that the experimenter did not deliver reinforcement for correct responses during training, and we examined the correspondence between each self-rule statement and each subsequent response on each trial. Results showed that the self-rules...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Developmental Disabilities, Reinforcement, Daily Living Skills, Adults,...
Research has demonstrated that interspersing mastered tasks with new tasks facilitates learning under certain conditions; however, little is known about factors that influence the effectiveness of this treatment strategy. The initial purpose of the current investigation was to evaluate the effects of similar versus dissimilar interspersed tasks while teaching object labels to children diagnosed with autism or developmental delays. We then conducted a series of exploratory analyses involving the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Developmental Delays, Autism, Teaching Methods, Outcomes of Treatment, Instructional...
Inspired by studies of apprenticeship and theories of situated learning, this study argues that learning should be understood in relation to ongoing social practice. Using interview material and participant observation studying piano students' learning at the Academy of Music in Aarhus, it describes how transparency and access to the music culture at the Academy are important for the piano students' learning processes. In particular, two ways of learning are described: learning by imitation and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Apprenticeships, Music Education, Participant Observation, Interviews, Learning...
Recent studies in the literature on online learning highlight a constructivist approach to knowledge-building in Web-based environments. In this case study of an online course, students were introduced to a constructivist orientation toward learning, a requirement to work in a new learning environment, and a challenge to accomplish academic work with groups of colleagues. Students learned successfully how to accommodate these requirements. In particular, this article tells how communication...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Constructivism (Learning), Communication Strategies, Student Attitudes, Self...
The purpose of this study was to examine problem-based learning (pbl) and how students in the middle grades math and science classroom perceived its effectiveness. Analysis of student perceptions of changes in their learning processes and self-efficacy was analyzed through student interviews. Data identified the components of changes in students' learning processes and self-efficacy, which include self-confidence, group dynamics, and self-motivation. Data revealed that students' perceptions...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Student Attitudes, Self Efficacy, Problem Based Learning, Group Dynamics, Learning...
Studies investigating cultural influences on second-language writing have been mainly product-oriented. Moreover, research on writing processes has mostly focused on the strategies of writing and learning to write. Writing processes where we can see the evolution of the writer's identity and beliefs have been less adequately addressed. Therefore, this article focuses on the dynamic relationship of culture, identity, and beliefs with regard to the writing process (the micro-process) and the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Writing Processes, Learning Processes, Cultural Influences, English (Second...
This study sought to further investigate the effects of an observational intervention for two participants on the reinforcing property of pieces of string. Pre-observational intervention data showed that the neutral stimuli (strings) did not function to reinforce two participants' responding to a performance task or learning three new skills that were not previously in their repertoires. The observational intervention involved the participants observing a peer confederate receive strings...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Stimuli, Intervention, Observational Learning, Reinforcement, Learning Processes,...
Universities are by their nature learning based organizations. They deliver knowledge to the students through teaching processes. Students acquire knowledge through learning processes, from their professors and from other different knowledge resources. Since learning is a fundamental process within any university, people may consider universities as being learning organizations. This is a major error, especially in the former socialist countries. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Learning Processes, Thinking Skills, Higher Education, Universities, Scientific...
The purpose of this article is to map the context within which learning could occur, that is, the organizational learning processes and structures that can create or improve learning in a learning organization. Such an approach produces definition for learning organization and integrates the basis concepts into a model of organizational learning in the technologically environment, based on assisted instruction. (Contains 1 figure and 2 endnotes.)
Topics: ERIC Archive, Information Technology, Learning Processes, Organizational Development, Concept...
Two representative approaches to measuring and assessing organizational learning are compared. Based on the benefits and drawbacks of each, an alternative framework is proposed for an assessment based on action science, from pragmatic point of view of members of a team within an organization which has declared an intention to improve learning processes. (Contains 1 table, 1 endnote, and a bibliography.)
Topics: ERIC Archive, Learning Processes, Organizational Development, Questionnaires, Alternative...
The goal of the middle school organization is to create a learning environment that matches the developmental abilities and needs of young adolescents. This research attempts to operationalize that goal by integrating reading and English classes in large urban middle schools. The Student Team Reading and Writing (STRW) program reconfigured instruction to actively engage students in learning. The program used cooperative learning processes to take advantage of the cognitive, social, and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Reading Comprehension, Cooperative Learning, Learning Processes, Teaching Methods,...
Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the context switch effect upon retrieval of the information about a cue-outcome relationship in human predictive learning. The results replicated the well-known effect of renewal of the cue-outcome relationship due to a context change after a retroactive interference treatment, as much as the null effect of the context change upon acquisition before retroactive interference training had taken place (Experiment 2). However, retrieval of an unambiguous...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Stimuli, Memory, Experimental Psychology, Context Effect, Cues, Learning Processes,...
One conditioned taste aversion experiment with rats assessed the impact of extinguishing a target conditioned stimulus (CS), S, in compound with a second CS, A, upon conditioned responding elicited by CS S when presented alone at test. Following initial conditioning treatment with CSs A and S, the experiment manipulated number of extinction trials with CS A alone (i.e., 0, 5, or 10 trials) prior to AS compound treatment. In addition, two control groups received either extinction trials with S...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Control Groups, Stimuli, Associative Learning, Learning Processes, Conditioning,...
Resurgence refers to the recovery of previously extinguished responding when a recently reinforced response is extinguished. Although the topic of resurgence has received limited experimental attention, there recently have been an increased number of investigations involving the topic. This increased experimental attention also has been accompanied by conceptual analysis. This increased interest in resurgence by both basic and applied behavior analysts is noteworthy because the topic relates to...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Investigations, Behavior Modification, Communication Disorders, Reinforcement,...
The application of modelling to social learning in monkey populations has been a neglected topic. Recently, however, a number of statistical, simulation and analytical approaches have been developed to help examine social learning processes, putative traditions, the use of social learning strategies and the diffusion dynamics of socially transmitted information. Here, I review some of the recent advances and show how they influence and combine with empirical studies of social learning.
Topics: ERIC Archive, Socialization, Population Distribution, Learning Strategies, Learning Processes,...
In this article we attempt to complicate traditional--and, we argue, limited and exclusionary--definitions of interdisciplinarity as the bringing into dialogue of established disciplines without questioning the parameters and practices of those disciplines. We propose that interdisciplinarity instead might mean teaching and learning among, between, and in the midst of those of innate or learned capacities--not only college faculty but also students and staff. To illustrate this more radical...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Definitions, College Faculty, Intellectual Disciplines, Epistemology,...
Many students who enter colleges and universities seem to be focused on memorizing and regurgitating information rather than on developing critical thinking and problem solving skills. Mentoring is crucial to help these students transition from the current approach to one that will be successful in college. Successful mentoring requires a structured approach. The scientific method can serve as the model for such an approach. An important component of successful mentoring involves teaching...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mentors, Scientific Methodology, Learning Strategies, Teaching Methods, College...
The two case studies presented explore the potential offered by in-depth qualitative analysis of students' online discussion to enhance our understanding of how students learn. Both cases are used to illustrate how the monitoring and moderation of online student group communication can open up a "window into learning", providing us with new insights into complex problem-solving and thinking processes. The cases offer examples of students' "thinking aloud" while...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Case Studies, Computer Mediated Communication, Learning Processes, Virtual...
The purpose of this study was to investigate a multi-faceted women's calculus course designed to retain women in advanced mathematics courses. With this research, we wanted to find out, first, in what ways students were influenced by participation in the course and, second, in what ways these influences affected their mathematics learning or willingness to take additional mathematics courses. Findings from this study demonstrate that students formed a supportive group of individuals who valued...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Education, Females, Participant Observation, Mathematics Achievement,...
This study investigated the effects of perceived controllability on information processing within Weiner's (1985, 1986) attributional model of learning. Attributional style was used to identify trait patterns of controllability for 37 university students. Task-relevant feedback on an information-processing task was then manipulated to test for differences in working memory function between participants with high versus low levels of trait controllability. Processing efficiency occurred...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Feedback (Response), Short Term Memory, Cognitive Processes, Attribution Theory,...
Twenty-one in-service early childhood students participated in a teaching practicum in Australia as part of the final year of a Bachelor of Arts in Hong Kong. Students spent two weeks visiting a university and early childhood settings in Australia. The university based component of the program included workshops and discussions with lecturing staff located in both the Australian and Hong Kong universities. Students were asked to complete written statements about "What is children's...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Preservice Teacher Education, Student Teachers, Practicums, Teacher Education...