Illustrates the use of a course focused on developing 3-D spatial skills at Michigan Technological University. Provides data to support the recommendation that some students take the spatial skills course before enrolling in the regular engineering graphics courses. (DDR)

Concept maps created by 21 adult students at 3 points were scored and students were interviewed. Maps developed thinking skills and fostered understanding of knowledge construction. Most continued to use maps after 1 year. Even those who did not continue to use them reported changes in their thinking. (Contains 15 references.) (SK)

Discusses the use of electronic mapping and geographic information systems (GIS) in education. Highlights include GIS capabilities; learning environments; how GIS helps learners; examples of GIS in elementary and secondary education; GIS use by administration; and barriers to GIS implementation, including time, training, and cost. (LRW)

Assessment of nursing students' use of the following six-step learning strategy revealed it successfully promotes critical thinking: (1) describe critical clinical incidents; (2) discuss the use of critical thinking in the incident; (3) identify implicit/explicit assumptions; (4) examine the influence of context on judgment; (5) formulate…

Invites readers to join in a celebration of the stories that are a continuous part of the author's life. Tells about her experiences with sharing stories in many different settings and situations. Includes an 8-item annotated list of books on cross-generational story telling. (SG)

Introduces a special issue of the Journal of the Learning Sciences on methodology in learning sciences. Focuses on how one begins to account for learning and the potential of a learning context to support learning. (Author/MM)

Advances a methodology for capturing and tracing the emergence, evolution, and diffusion of a practice, conceptual understanding, resource, or student-constructed artifact. Presents the Constructing Networks of Action-Relevant Episodes (CN-ARE) methodology which allows researchers to identify relevant data from a complex, evolving environment, and…

Storytelling can help campers build confidence and enhance their communication skills. Techniques include choosing a short, familiar story; learning major points and retelling in one's own words; introducing the story; practicing facial expressions, gestures, voice inflections, and body movements; and telling the story in a small group in a quiet…

The learning of eight children (ages 8-13) with Down syndrome was compared with typical children. The control group reached a criterion of learning much faster on a given task. When amount of learning was controlled, children with Down syndrome seemed to have less difficulty in activity-change with the task. (Author/CR)

In this study, six percent of a 2-year-old child's spontaneous utterances in six 3-hour samples were identified as one of three expressive metalinguistic utterance types: interrogatives, hypothesis tests, and evocative utterances. Evocative utterances were used most frequently. The subject used the strategies to seek nouns 78 percent of the time.…

Discussion of student resistance to technology-delivered training focuses on strategies at the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) that overcame learner resistance by maintaining a personal relationship with each student and flexibly addressing each student's personal style and concerns. Considers reasons for student resistance and the continued need…

In a 4-week study, students in one of two high school geometry classes completed three types of writing assignments: summarizing teacher lectures, explaining the process of problem solving, and analyzing incorrect problems on homework or tests. The class that completed the writing assignments had significantly higher average scores on two chapter…

Interviewed and surveyed 490 high school students regarding their approaches to learning and their perceptions of teaching and learning in the classroom. Overall, students with deep approaches to learning generally perceived the same learning environments differently than did students with surface approaches (they had more sophisticated…

Defines the Graphic Organizer Notebook as a collection of teacher-developed blank webs and organizers for a student to complete after reading chunks of content material taught in a unit. Concludes that implementing the Graphic Organizer Notebook in a content area unit enables teachers to teach reading, writing, and study skill strategies meeting…

This research note examines the effect that computer mediated communication (CMC) has on learner activity levels in a self-regulated asynchronous learning network environment and investigates whether or not CMC can be used to positively influence the learning experience in a university course. (LRW)