The way in which sources of information are perceived in the classroom, in this case by American Indian and Afro-American students, greatly influences the learning process, for the perception determines both the amount of mental effort or cognitive engagement the student decides to invest and the cognitive processes used. Perceptions are…

The paper suggests appropriate activities for teaching learning disabled fourth graders in a regular class the concepts of geographical latitude and longitude. Application of the learning principles identified in a review of the literature suggests the need to include visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile activities of benefit to the entire…

This paper discusses ways in which the innate act of "telling" can be used in teaching to strengthen the bond between teacher and student and enrich the process of learning. The paper offers an intuitive rationale for using "telling" as a teaching mode in the community college classroom and provides a formal explanation of "telling" based on the…

The reviews of articles contained in this issue have been grouped into those dealing with research related to cognitive development and to instruction. In addition, seven science education researchers have provided responses to critiques of their published research. Included are: (1) an analysis of an article designed to persuade researchers to…

The study, involving 53 students from the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, investigated the relevance of certain aptitude-by-treatment interaction findings with normally hearing students to the instruction of hearing impaired students. Instructional variables investigated were classroom structure and student participation. Student…

Researchers are concluding that high school and college students do not have a well-balanced repertoire of effective independent learning strategies. Another line of research has focused upon the question of the "process" or the "how" underlying such learning strategies. Three insights from this research are pertinent to developmental educators.…

The technical reports summarized in this paper were prepared as part of a project designed to determine what is known about the teaching of cognitive skills and to formulate questions relating to such teaching for further research. Topics discussed in the 22 reports include the following: (1) teaching thinking; (2) Aristotle's logic; (3) a…

Addressing the concern that writing assignments are used only for recording or relating information, a program called "Writing in Content Areas" has been developed in Minnesota to help students and teachers use writing as a tool for learning. Students are encouraged to use expressive writing for working out ideas, relationships, understandings,…

A validated instructional model generated on a large mainframe computer by the military was modified to a microcomputer format for use in programming tutorial computer assisted instruction (CAI) materials, and a simplified, compatible system of generating programs was identified--CP/M and MP/M from Digital Research Corporation. In order to…

This study investigates the effects of meaningful-learning postquestions on recall of relevant and incidental information by two groups of fifth graders, good and poor comprehenders. The two groups had 48 fifth graders each, selected from 228 students who took the New Developmental Reading Test and the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test. Subjects…

The origins of error analysis as a pedagogical tool can be traced to the beginnings of the notion of interference and the use of contrastive analysis (CA) to predict learners' errors. With the focus narrowing to actual errors committed by students, it was found that all learners of English as a second language seemed to make errors in the same…

The following papers on research in foreign language are presented: (1) "Research and Design," by Thomas C. Cooper; (2) "Action Research versus Needed Research for the 1980s," by Gilbert A. Jarvis; and (3) "Second Language Acquisition Research: Needs and Priorities," by Stephen D. Krashen. The first paper discusses three research procedures…

A deductive-inductive sequence of writing instruction, in which students are instructed systematically before they begin to write, would help students learn to write well. Educators who propose a trial and error pattern ignore the facts that those learning to write do not have unlimited time in which to learn and are not dealing with an inherent…

To determine why some children find textbooks to be much more difficult to understand than teachers' presentations, four reading selections for middle grade readers were analyzed, as were tape recorded lessons prepared by ten teachers on the basis of the same selections. Excerpts from one of the written passages and excerpts and analysis of one…

The ways in which a physical education program for elementary school children of all ability levels may be developed are examined. Central to this subject is knowledgeable and systematic observation of each child's physical movements on the part of the teacher. The physical educator must develop skills of the mechanics of human movement to…