This article offers a skeletal critique of the pedagogical theory and the teaching practices arising from the work of educational innovator, Benjamin Bloom. Professor Bloom's theory and method have overtly and covertly insinuated themselves into North American educational practice over the past half-century. Their impact and influence have been…

This study of two groups of four children (ages 6-9) with learning disabilities evaluated the effects of two contingencies (independent and interdependent) on the learning of students with learning and behavioral disabilities when conducted in small groups with constant time delay. Measures were collected on the rapidity with which children…

Designed for media specialists and educators, the four articles in this issue focus on television's effects on children. Following a brief editorial reviewing current directions of research in this area, the first article compares the American pre-school educational television program "Sesame Street" with its Australian counterpart.…

Three articles offer parents suggestions on how to make television a positive experience for their children. An editorial introduces the following themes basic to all the articles: type and amount of television viewing should be regulated by parents, parents should discuss television with their children, and parents must become aware of the…

Reflects upon opportunities for research in instructional technology provided by present state of media hardware technology and educational requirements. Prospects for research in incidental learning, including learning from television, are discussed, as well as traditional learning research on intentional learning, including possibilities for…

Four adolescents with moderate mental disabilities were taught by peers to read key words from labels of cooking products using constant time delay. Students mastered the reading of target key words in a relatively short amount of time with minimal errors, acquired some incidental learning of cooking definitions, and were able to generalize the…

A social intervention for 4- and 5-year olds exhibiting behavior problems is described. The multiyear social skills program includes direct instruction of social skills, incidental teaching, and reinforcement procedures. Training of school staff and program implementation are highlighted. Observable improvements in peer interactions resulted from…

Incidental teaching of social behavior and friendship activities are naturalistic peer interventions that can be easily incorporated into preschool curricula for children with and without special needs. This article provides a rationale for these two strategies, a 10-step program for implementing incidental social behavior instruction, and…

Microcomputers have the potential to alter the entire learning environment and change the nature of education, but the use of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) methods developed when computers were less readily available can endanger or retard the change. Designed to increase the efficiency of the teaching of course content, CAI makes no attempt…

Adjunct questions are test-like items interspersed at regular intervals, preceding or following prose passages, with the intention of increasing subsequent learning. In this state-of-the-art review, studies which include three major variables--age, ability, and question complexity level--are examined to determine whether a particular combination…

INFORMAL EDUCATION PRIMARILY INCLUDES EDUCATION FOR EVERYDAY EFFECTIVE LIVING AND DOES NOT NECESSARILY HAVE TO INCLUDE COURSES FOR CREDIT AT THE HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE LEVELS. MILLIONS OF POVERTY STRICKEN PEOPLE CAN BENEFIT FROM THE TYPE OF INFORMAL EDUCATION PROVIDED THROUGH THE OFFICE OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY (OEO) IN SUCH PROGRAMS AS--(1) THE…

Age differences in recognition and recall of common nouns were studied using three groups of fifty students, with mean ages of 6.7, 11.4, and 16.9. Subjects were randomly placed in either an incidental or intentional learning condition. All subjects were questioned about the physical, phonemic, and semantic aspects of the same words, in the same…

This paper reports the findings of a survey to determine the effects, if any, that experience in playgroups had upon children of varying social class backgrounds in differing areas within the United Kingdom. The project aimed at answering two major questions: (1) Did teachers perceive differences in first year infant school children that they…

This discussion of opportunities for gifted children offered by television watching focuses on the role television can play in their intellectual and social development. Topics discussed include implications for parents, educators, and researchers; children's perceived reality of television content; and television as an educational device. (MBR)

Presents a hypothesis-generating study of advanced university English-as-a-Foreign-Language learners' incidental vocabulary acquisition from oral and written dialogue journals over a semester. Teacher and student entries were analyzed and transcribed using WordCruncher (1993). Analyses compare characteristics of the input to the learners in the…