Offers teachers practical advice on enhancing student learning through the use of online discussion. (PKP)

Quality is a value-laden and context-bound concept. Drawing on cultural psychology, this study examines the nature of cultural values underlying definitions of quality in American early childhood programs. From semi-structured interviews with 15 teachers and 15 administrators in center-based early childhood programs, three themes emerged: (a)…

Mathematics educators have found sociocultural models of teaching and learning to be powerful in their ability to describe and support the pursuit of instruction based on recent standards documents (e.g., National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM], 1989, 2000). These models of instruction, however, have been criticized for their lack of…

We show how an interactive website can help first-year undergraduates acquire independent study skills, and provide a user-friendly way of approaching challenging material in introductory level evolution and ecology. Students embraced the opportunity to undertake self-assessment tasks online, which allowed them to gauge their understanding and…

Gifted students are often described in the literature as being self-regulated, self-directed learners. Ten gifted primary students were interviewed in order to clarify the concept of self-directed learning in students of primary age. The students provided information on their knowledge of self-directed learning, explanations of the self-directed…

This study set out to investigate the self-teaching of good and poor readers in pointed Hebrew--a highly regular orthography. Four groups of children (three groups in Grades 4 to 6, and one group in Grade 2) were included in this study; poor readers with large discrepancies between IQ and reading ("dyslexics"), IQ-nondiscrepant poor…

Problem-based approaches to learning have a long history of advocating experience-based education. Psychological research and theory suggests that by having students learn through the experience of solving problems, they can learn both content and thinking strategies. Problem-based learning (PBL) is an instructional method in which students learn…

A distance education system may be viewed in terms of intrapersonal and interpersonal instructional dialogues that mediate the learning and instructional resources that enable such dialogues. Instructional resources include self-instruction texts, tutorial sessions, instructor availability, Web sites, and more. This study investigated the kinds of…

This paper shows how a study in educational sciences focused on the concept of "competence" can bring about changes in the pedagogical methods used when training engineers. Instead of using personality traits to understand innovators, a PhD study focused on practices and competencies revealed that, amongst other things, self-directed…

The aim of this article is to investigate the relation between self-regulated learning and online collaborative environments. Based on the study of a blended course for trainee teachers, it explores the potential of the online collaborative component of the course for the practice and development of Self-Regulated Learning. The study made use of…

Attitudinal data tested hypotheses that students have more positive attitudes toward science when teachers regularly emphasize hands-on laboratory activities and when students more frequently experience higher levels of experimentation or inquiry. The first predicted that students would have more positive attitudes toward science in classrooms…

The paper examines the potential for developing independent learning skills using the digital language laboratory with particular reference to exploiting the increasingly available resource of digital video. It investigates the potential for recording and editing video clips from online sources and digitalising clips from analogue recordings and…

This research developed from the recognition that work-based placement briefing and debriefing sessions need to encourage reflection and student self-directed learning. An action research methodology was used to obtain students views of the value of briefing and debriefing sessions. Changes to session format were introduced and then in response to…

The National Consortium on Leadership and Disability for Youth (NCLD-Youth) is one of 15 Youth Resource, Information, and Training Centers focused on empowering youth and emerging leaders with developmental disabilities. The NCLD-Youth is a youth-led center with partners in the District of Columbia as well as in the states of Florida and New…

Self-regulated learning (SRL) researchers have paid relatively little attention to questions concerning (a) the level of experience and expertise required to create high-SRL environments, (b) how teachers acquire such expertise, and (c) how expert instruction needs to be to influence students' SRL positively. We agree with Randi and Corno (2000)…