A project at the University of Calgary attempted to find ways in which university continuing education units could intervene programmatically to enhance professionals' autonomous learning skills and attitudes. The format was a workshop-lab spread over a 5-week period, with the first session of 1.5 days followed by 3 follow-up meetings of 4 hours…

This study examined transitional knowledge during literacy development, hypothesizing that there are times when the integration of reading and writing knowledges into literacy knowledges is problematic for children because these knowledges are out of synch with one another. Data were gathered from 46 kindergarten pupils, each of whom wrote and…

Intended for teachers and parents, this book focuses on demolishing widely held myths about poor spellers and about the process of spelling. "Dear Professor Henderson" (chapter 1) is a dedication to a favorite college professor who remonstrated with the author about his "lazy" spelling. "Kneeling on Rice" (chapter 2)…

Psychological theories have long had a pronounced effect on the diagnosis and instruction of children with learning problems. Traditional theorists emphasized the centrality of global processes assumed to be common to most if not all cognitive tasks. These processes were quite distant from those involved in traditional academic activities, making…

The central objective of this study was to determine the effects of formal training in the use and types of questions and in the nature and use of algorithms on middle school students' achievement in economic geography. Subjects were 190 eighth grade students in a large metropolitan school district. Three experimental groups received either: (1)…

Research indicates that the brain grows in spurts occurring every two years or so and alternating with plateau periods in which the gains due to growth are consolidated. While the number of brain cells no longer increases after the age of about 18 months, substantial increases in the complexity of neural networks occur generally between the ages…

WAYS OF USING AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS AS RESEARCH TOOLS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SOCIAL STUDIES CLASSES ARE DISCUSSED. INSTEAD OF USING FILMSTRIPS OR PHONOGRAPH RECORDS AS WHOLE CLASS LESSONS INDIVIDUALS OR SMALL GROUPS CAN WORK WITH THEN BY MEANS OF TABLE VIEWERS OR EARPHONES WITHOUT DISTURBING CLASSMATES ENGAGED IN OTHER ACTIVITIES. WHEN USING STILL…

THIS REPORT BRIEFLY REVIEWS TRENDS IN 20TH-CENTURY RESEARCH ON EDUCATING DISADVANTAGED AND MINORITY GROUP PUPILS. MANY STUDIES WRITTEN IN THE 1920'S AND 1930'S INDICATED THAT NEGROES WERE LESS INTELLIGENT THAN CAUCASIANS, AND THUS TEACHERS DEMANDED LITTLE OF THEIR MINORITY GROUP PUPILS. SINCE THAT TIME RESEARCH STUDIES HAVE EMPHASIZED THE…

This paper explores the concept of metamemory, generally defined as the individual's knowledge of and awareness of memory. The concept of metamemory is compared to three other categories of memory and a model of what the growing child could conceivably acquire in the domain of metamemory is presented. Brief reviews of existing research relations…

In a study of mathematics learning, taking a rule-oriented approach, students were taught to trade objects of type A for objects of types B and C. Children ranging from ages 7 to 9 were given rules for converting A to B and B to C and were then presented with the task of converting A to C. Of the 30, 6 succeeded. Of the 24 who failed, half were…

Clarification of one aspect of Jensen's model of cognitive abilities provided the impetus for this study. Jensen found that sentence construction as a mediator facilitated learning of paired associates, except when kindergarteners were used as subjects. The purpose of the present study is to determine whether the failure of the mediators to…

The Language Acquisition Device, or LAD, is related to reading and intellectual development in the first of five papers on cognitive and affective characteristics of exceptional children. A discussion of the intellectual processes involved in learning focuses on the developmental stages of Piaget. A report on a task force to discuss terminology…

To show that there are crucial assumptions of the cognitive-developmental approach to moral education made about the nature of moral reasoning which may not be warranted, sixty public school students randomly selected from two middle schools and two high schools, were interviewed on twelve different dilemmas. Transcripts of the interviews,…

This report presents ten ideas about children's learning and cognition that are based on recent research. The empirical findings are reviewed and related to educational practices. The findings concern the following topics of learning and cognition: (1) individual differences, (2) children's problem-solving abilities and ability to remember…

An experiment investigated the effects of representational modes, presentation methods, and age on learning. Representation was in either iconic or symbolic verbal style, the verbal component was presented by either tape or booklet, and the pictorial component contrasted filmloops. Nine and eleven year old learners were exposed to a lesson on the…